Perfect Storm
by foolondahill17
Summary: An endless stream of wounded mixed with perpetual rain is usually more than enough for the personnel at MASH 4077 to contend with, but with the addition of a Korean family seeking help, bombardment from nearby enemy troops, and the life-threatening injury of one of their own, it all collides to create the perfect storm. Hawkeye whump, if you were wondering.
1. Prologue - Lightning Struck

Disclaimer: I don't own MASH. If I did, I'd probably be doing something other than writing fan fiction about it.

Author's Note: I'd originally planned on not posting anything in the MASH fandom until a few days before Christmas, with a rather lengthy, fluffy, Christmassy one-shot I've completed over the past few weeks. However, this story came to me out of the blue and I couldn't resist posting it.

I usually don't write such shamefully angst-ridden melodramas, but once I had begun getting this down on paper I couldn't seem to stop myself. It was as if I was actually in MASH 4077, witnessing these events first hand. It was as if their situations had become my own, their feelings, actions, and voices quite plain to me, the mere observer.

* * *

Perfect Storm

* * *

Prologue – Lightning Struck:

Lightning clattered in the sky, claps of thunder completely obstructed by the constant piercing shriek and roar of dropping bombs. The ground shook beneath Hawkeye's feet and he tottered while reaching for a pressure bandage to clamp to the bleeding abdomen of the corporal lying in front of him.

"Alright," he shouted over the exploding bombs and pattering artillery directly outside the walls of the small shack Battalion Aid had set up in. "He's ready to be moved. Get me another one, stat!"

"There's no time, sir!" Sergeant Bunn's voice came out in a rush, water dripping down the sides of his face. "Our forces aren't holding. I've got orders to get everyone out of here right now!"

"Let me get to one more," Hawkeye said, already moving to another stretcher bound soldier. "I've got to get a tourniquet on his leg –"

"There isn't time, Captain," the sergeant insisted. He grabbed for Hawkeye's arm but Hawkeye moved out of the way, running up to the soldier whose leg had was torn apart by shrapnel, a mess of red and white bone and shining metal.

"Sergeant!" Private McKinnon appeared in the open doorway of the shack, eyes large, rifle held in his shaking hands, drenched with mud and rain. "We've got to get out of here, they said! The Chinese are right around the corner!"

There was a shuddering explosion, shaking dust from the ceiling, upheaving the ground so that Hawkeye lost his balance and crashed to his knees on the dirt floor. He threw his arms over his head to protect him from falling rafters and cursed when he thought of the soldier with the wounded leg, lying above him completely unprotected.

"Captain, come on!" roared Sergeant Bunn, fingers closing around Hawkeye's wrist. Hawkeye suddenly knew that there was no way the sergeant was going to leave without him and he struggled back to his feet.

"Alright!" he bellowed, cursing the Chinese, cursing the war, cursing himself for being so helpless. He tore himself out of Sergeant Bunn's grip and lunged for now dust covered soldier lying on the stretcher. He grabbed hold of one end of the stretcher and the sergeant grabbed the other.

They followed Private McKinnon into the downpour of rain and shrapnel outside. Hawkeye stowed the soldier on the back of a jeep. "Get in, Captain!" Sergeant Bunn yelled, and turned to Private McKinnon, who was holding his rifle toward the murky, rippling trees and undergrowth that might hold any number of shadowed enemies, "come on, Billy!"

Hawkeye leapt toward the front seat of the jeep. He heard a flurry of sharp cracks and a scream. He whirled around, mind automatically clicking into motion, looking to see what was happened, who was hurt, what he could do –

Private McKinnon was lying on his back in the mud. Hawkeye darted forward. Sergeant Bunn was yelling behind him.

He heard the familiar piercing shriek in the back of his mind, hardly recognizing what it meant. He saw in front of him the sudden tearing apart of the earth. There wasn't time to react. There wasn't time to take cover, to think of taking cover.

The impact tremor hit him like a thousand ton of bricks. His feet left the ground.

Time stopped.

The air around him filled with flying rocks, dirt, and dust. The continuous patter of rain, the angry screaming of the explosion, the clatter of guns all at once disappeared, becoming a muffled drone in his ears. Hawkeye knew, somehow, that he was waiting for something, something large, something significant, something terrible. He was conscious of a strange, insistent pain in his stomach.

The ground rose up to meet his back at a frightening speed. He crashed against the ground like a ragdoll thrown against a paved driveway. He tumbled. He heard something crack, something break, felt something snap. Something was screaming inside of his head, something that was aware that he had lost all control. He was being moved by a brutally strong, frightening force completely outside of himself.

He felt pulsing, uncontrollable fear blanket itself around his mind, stopping the air from coming up his throat.

He skidded to a stop. The dust settled.

Like the volume had suddenly been dialed all the way back to maximum on a speaker, sound leapt back to life, tearing into his ears, screaming, screaming, screaming.

He couldn't breathe.

My God, he couldn't breathe.

He couldn't see anything. All around him was light, drifting particulars of light, blinding, flickering –

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't _move_.

He became aware of something hard and smooth below his right palm. He focused on the feeling until he could detect individual particles of dirt beneath the beds of his fingers. He dug into the ground, curling his fingers into the dirt, trying to hold onto something, grasp something, some small, solid piece of reality.

He blinked. The blinding light retreated to the corners of his eyes. He was staring at dusty, cloudy sky, reaching branches of trees. Rain dripped onto his face, falling into his open lips. He could taste blood in his mouth.

He couldn't move. He couldn't feel anything. He focused on the dirt and small pebbles grasped within his fist.

Breath seeped achingly through his teeth in a wheeze. His chest rose and fell. The sensation of pain tickled the corner of his brain, feeling like a detached aching, spidery pain webbing across his chest and left shoulder, as if it was someone else's pain, someone else's….

Something moved out of the corner of his eye. With difficulty Hawkeye turned his head. It was…someone's foot.

Private McKinnon! The thought sliced through Hawkeye's stomach like a knife. My God… beside the foot was Private McKinnon's other leg, a ragged, bleeding stump.

Had to stop the bleeding. Hawkeye had to stop the bleeding. He lifted his right hand unconsciously, reaching toward Private McKinnon, touching the toe of his one remaining boot. Water was soaking hotly through the front of Hawkeye's uniform.

He put his hand to his chest. The finger's came away red.

Hawkeye couldn't…he couldn't breathe. Darkness grew in the corner of his mind. He felt something painfully gripping his shoulders, digging into the bone, pulling him away.

A strange sense of lightlessness overtook him, filling him up as with air. He was…floating…darkness was spreading across his vision. He could feel his own hot blood pulsing out of his chest and soaking through his shirt.

His right hand slipped away from his chest. He searched for the ground again with his fingers but there wasn't anything there. His wrist rubbed against the smooth lip of the side of a stretcher and he knew no more.


	2. Rising Wind

Chapter One – Rising Wind:

"BJ! Captain Hunnicutt! Come quick!"

"What on earth are you shouting about, Corporal?"

"Major Winchester, sir! Come quick! Please, it's Hawkeye! He's hurt real bad."

"What do you mean, Corporal O'Reilly? Calm yourself!"

"Major Winchester, it's Hawkeye! Captain Pierce just came in with the other wounded. He's all bloody and I think he's unconscious or something. He must have been hurt at the Battalion Aid."

All this was said in a panicked, high-pitched bleating, in the midst of rushing, mud kicked up behind his heels, across the soaked and dripping compound. The sound of distant shell-fire swelled behind the very near sounds of tires spinning through mud, the incessant patter of rain, groaning of the many wounded laid in stretchers across the ground, yelling, stomping of boots, and the splitting of lighting across the dark, overcast sky.

Charles felt his stomach clench, felt Corporal O'Reilly's words trickle down his spine like the cold rain slipping down the collar of his pajama shirt. He followed the bobbing of Radar's flashlight at a trot, dodging the stretchers, the other personnel rushing pell-mell across the camp, bathrobes whipping, drenched through by the downpour. Charles impatiently brushed the rain out of his eyes.

"What is it, Radar?" Hunnicutt yelled from across the compound, kneeling in the mud at the side of a wounded soldier, trying to shield the boy's stomach wound from the falling rain.

"Never mind, Hunnicut. It's being taken care of," Charles tossed over his shoulder automatically, remembering Radar's ominous words, stomach swirling and heart pattering, not wanting to cause a seen.

"It's Hawkeye, sir!" Radar screeched back. The boy sounded near hysterics. He continued to pelt forward, twisting around a nurse carrying an IV above her head. "He came in with the wounded on the bus!"

Charles could hear Hunnicutt's hastily smothered shout of disbelief behind him, but didn't stop to offer the man any words of comfort. He followed Radar aboard the medical evacuation bus, boots clomping on the metal floor, skidding slightly over the mixture of mud, water, and blood.

"Here, sir!" said Radar.

Charles didn't need the Corporal's directions. He recognized Pierce's shaggy black head immediately, lanky form sprawled across the top bunk of the shelves of stretchers built into the sides of the bus. Pierce's pale green army fatigues were covered in mud and dark blood.

"My God," Charles muttered. He shouldered his way beside Radar, the boy's continued babbling disappearing into an unimportant drone in the back of Charles' head.

The blood was thickest and darkest across Pierce's chest and shoulder, which had been hastily wrapped in now dirty bandages. Charles struggled to click automatically back into a medical mode that Radar's pronouncement had jarred out of place.

His hands fumbled for the bandages covering Pierce's arm and chest, trying to complete a hasty medical scan through his haze of disbelief and shock. His eyes were continuously drawn to Pierce's ashen face, spattered with red and brown.

Pierce's eyes flickered. He groaned.

"Easy, easy," whispered Charles mechanically.

"Private McKinnon…get to…too much blood…leg blown off…."

"Try not to talk now, Pierce. Lay still."

"Charles…get to – Private McKinnon…."

"Quiet now, Pierce, easy does it."

"Radar!" Hunnicutt's voice echoed off the aluminum interior of the bus. "What were you saying. Hawkeye's been –"

"He's right here, sir," squeaked Radar.

"My God, Hawkeye!" Hunnicutt exclaimed. Charles felt the other doctor rush forward, felt Hunnicutt's shoulder press urgently against his own. "My God, what happened?" he whispered, voice croaking and withered sounding.

"Don't crowd me, Hunnicutt!" Charles snapped, something he recognized as panic edging disconcertingly across the corner of his mind. The rain clattered against the roof of the bus, making it difficult to hear anything, making it difficult to think.

"Beej…." croaked Pierce weakly.

"Battalion Aid was overrun, sir," said Radar faintly.

"Don't talk, Hawkeye. You're gonna be just fine." Hunnicutt leaned farther over Charles' arm. "The aorta may be partially torn," Hunnicutt said in a rush of breath. "He's hemorrhaging –going into shock –"

"Pulmonary laceration…" whispered Pierce. "…fractured ribs." He coughed. Charles saw that his teeth were stained pink.

"Pierce, for once in your life would you please _shut up_," Charles hissed through his tight throat, pawing through the tattered folds of Pierce's fatigues, peeling away the bandages that were glued to his skin by blood.

His chest was a mess of red and torn flesh. He caught sight of a glimmer of white ribcage.

"What in Sam's Hill are you two doing in here?" Colonel Potter's boots clattered on the metal floor of the bus. "You've got a job to do. Get it done and done quickly. I need you both in the OR!"

"It's Hawkeye, sir," whispered Radar, voice taut as if he was choking back tears.

"Good gracious, what happened?" the Colonel's voice, still gruff, immediately lost his edge. He crowded in behind Hunnicutt.

"Battalion Aid, sir," Radar breathed. "It must have been…I mean…."

But Colonel Potter appeared to be no longer listening to Radar. He shoved his way to Pierce's side, cursing over what he saw.

"Hey…Colonel," whispered Hawkeye, lips spreading into what could hardly be described as a smile, "next time I'll…call…before dropping…in."

Colonel Potter's hand closed tightly around Pierce's shoulder. "Easy, son." He said to Charles, "Damn, he doesn't look good. You take him first."

"Colonel, let me –" babbled Hunnicutt.

"Winchester's our top chest man, you know that, Captain!" Colonel Potter snapped. "Now get back to your job. Hawkeye's not the only one wounded, you know!"

"Colonel –" Hunnicutt started to say.

"For goodness sake! Stop crowding me, Hunnicutt!" Charles had not meant to shout. He wiped the trails of rain and sweat off his face with the back of his hand.

Colonel Potter pointed to Hunnicutt's chest, "You get back to triage. Hawkeye's being taken care of. You –" he pointed to Charles', voice low and quick, "you scrub up and get ready to do the darndest job you've ever done on a time press."

Charles' began to edge his way back down the aisle of the bus, leaving Pierce for Radar and another corpsman to carry in on the stretcher.

"And Winchester," Potter's voice was strained. His eyes, hidden behind rain-specked glasses, seemed to bore into Charles' face. "Don't worry about anything fancy. Remember that we can always go back in after we've taken care of the other boys. Just do a good enough job that will make sure we'll still have that option later!"

Charles launched himself back into the pouring rain.

"Major Houlihan, get in there and prepare to assist Major Winchester!" barked Colonel Potter behind Charles. Charles caught a glimpse of the wet, limp blond hair of Major Houlihan whip through the air as she turned to follow Charles into the operating room.

Charles stripped off his bathrobe, having been hauled over his shoulders only moments before when the wounded had arrived in the middle of the night, and threw it unceremoniously onto the wooden bench pressed against the wall of the scrub room.

He paused only to wipe his face again on the back of his arm, hardly realizing that his fingers had begun to tremble. The door swung open behind him. He recognized Major Houlihan's sharp footsteps on the wooden floor. He breathed deeply through his nose and turned the tap on, dousing his shaking fingers in a rush of tepid water from the faucet, trying to prepare himself physically and mentally to begin.

* * *

BJ was having trouble keeping his mind on the task at hand. Unanswered questions and panic tumbled ferociously through his mind. He tried to focus on breathing deeply, attempting to settle his churning stomach. He clapped a wounded soldier numbly on the shoulder, mumbling, "You'll be fine. We advertise better care here than at the Marriott."

He couldn't erase the picture of Hawkeye lying motionless on a stretcher, of his blood-soaked shirt and pallid face, lifeless eyes. He couldn't get rid of the twisting, painful thumping in his stomach, of the wrenching sense of disbelief, the shock that it was to see his best friend lying there, dripping blood, half-way conscious, perhaps….

No! No, my God, no! BJ couldn't start to think like that. He couldn't allow his mind to stray anywhere near that dark and murky field of thought. Charles was good. Charles was a fantastic doctor. If Charles couldn't pull Hawkeye through than nobody could. BJ gulped back the acid that had risen in his throat.

"BJ!" Father Mulcahy's voice drifted through the wind and rain. With the squelching sound of boots being pulled through mud, the priest appeared, hair plastered to the side of his face, eyes darting behind his glasses. "I've just heard from Radar. My heavens, BJ, is Hawkeye alright? Is he going to be alright?"

"Charles is –" it was difficult to work his throat. "He's in there with Charles now."

"What happened, BJ?"

"I don't know, Father. He's –" BJ could not go on. His throat seemed to have collapsed, air ceased to reach his brain. He was suddenly very lightheaded, confused, lost….

Father Mulcahy's fingers closed around his forearm. "He'll be fine, BJ, I'm sure of it. Don't you worry."

It was what anyone was supposed to say. It didn't actually mean anything. BJ knew better than anyone that it didn't really mean anything. Doctor as he was, he himself wasn't even sure if Hawkeye was going to be alright. If his aortic artery had, in fact, been torn, even partially – it, BJ could tell Hawkeye had already lost a great deal of blood, there was no telling – Charles, even Charles wouldn't know the full extent of damage until he had Hawkeye's chest opened before him, displayed to the air and harsh light of the operating room –

"I've got to go, Father," BJ heard himself murmur. "Get Klinger to help you carry him in," he gestured to the soldier at his feet, stretcher laid in the dirt that had quickly been turned to mud in the ceaseless downpour of rain that had lasted all yesterday and half-way through the night. It fell onto the soldier's face and dripped down BJ's chin, ran into his eyes, making it difficult to see through the misty and night-shrouded compound.

He tramped heavily through the muck and shouldered open the door to pre-op. Charles was nowhere to be seen so presumably he was already working on…Hawkeye. The whole scenario refused to drop its cover of horrid surrealism. It was almost as if BJ's brain was incapable of swallowing the facts, that Hawkeye had been seriously injured, was being operated on, right now, right here, that BJ was utterly powerless, unable to lift so much as a finger, to help his best friend, perhaps stop him from –

BJ shook his head. Droplets of water flung loose from his drenched hair. He couldn't afford to think like this. After all, Hawkeye wasn't the only one fighting for his life in there. The door swung open and Colonel Potter stomped in, already pulling off his soaked bathrobe. He took his glasses off and wiped them on the corner of his pajama top.

"We're in for a tough one, BJ. Better get scrubbed up," somehow the older man's voice seemed unusually gentle.

"Sure thing," said BJ, and found, to his surprise, that he was already standing behind the sink, dressed in his pure white scrubs. Nurse Able burst through the door, muddy combat boots clashing strangely with her flimsy nightgown.

"I just heard, Colonel. Hawkeye – is he –?"

"Winchester's with him," said Colonel Potter, sounding tired. "Let's all keep a level head, now."

BJ wiped his hands and arms dry. He pulled a pair of rubber gloves over his hands with a snap. He pushed the door open to the operating room, shouting as he did so, "Alright, I'm ready. Bring one in."

"Bowl resection, sir," said Nurse Johnson, already standing at the ready.

Charles was standing at the far table, as he always did. Margaret was working with him, her back to BJ, blocking Hawkeye's face from BJ's sight. He wanted to say something, to ask how it was going, to ask…but Charles' forehead was beaded with sweat, his eyes strained purely on Hawkeye's open chest below him.

"More suction, Margaret," he said tightly. "Clamp."

There was a metallic clatter as an instrument fell out of Margaret's fingers and onto the floor.

"Damn it, Major! Be careful!"

"Steady now, Major," said Colonel Potter calmly as he pushed through the door, arms held parallel at chest height.

"Yes, Colonel." Margaret's voice was strangely high-pitched. "Sorry, Major." BJ noticed her fingers, covered in transparent rubber, covered in blood, Hawkeye's blood, were shaking.

"It's alright," muttered Charles, almost inaudibly, as if he might be speaking to either Margaret or himself. "It's alright, Major. Clamp."

"Doctor…?" said Nurse Johnson, and BJ snapped back to attention. He surveyed the broken, unconscious body of the soldier on the table before him, gauging the damage as best he could, and took a deep breath. "Scalpel," he said, and felt the instrument press into his palm.

He worked quickly but methodically, feeling the blissful automation of surgery take hold of his body and mind, disappearing into the here and now so completely as only working on a patient had ever allowed him to.

"How's it going, Winchester?" Colonel Potter's voice cut across the gentle drone of tinkling instruments and murmured voices of the doctors and nurses. Otherwise, the operating room was strangely silent, unnervingly silently and it sliced through BJ's chest like a cold knife when he realized that it was Hawkeye's usually light-hearted banter and cheerful quips that were missing.

"Don't bother me now!" Charles snapped, and then seemed to realize who he was talking to and said, "Er – Colonel. It's…tricky…" he didn't elaborate, holding out his hand for Margaret to press another instrument into.

"Alright," BJ said, pulling another stich tight. "I'm ready for another one."

Klinger darted forward, frilled eye-covers pushed on top of his head, one of the two corpsmen to remove BJs patient. "Hey, he gonna be alright, sir?" He jabbed his head in the direction of Hawkeye, eyes large above the mask covering his nose and mouth.

BJ tried to smile but then remembered his own mask was covering his lips. "Keep your fingers crossed, Klinger," he said, as lightly as he could.

Another patient was wheeled in to replace BJ's first one. BJ tossed his gloves off and snapped on a clean pair.

"No pulse, doctor." The voice was quiet, so very horrifyingly quiet, but it seemed to penetrate the whole room, clanging against the flimsy walls, weaving through the air, colliding meaninglessly against BJs eardrums.

In the pause that followed, BJ heard Margaret stifle a gasp. For a moment Charles' eyes leapt upward, catching hold of BJ's from across the room. Charles' eyes were wide and terrified, his hands seemed to have gone utterly still. BJ felt something within him jerk, for a moment he was certain he was going to throw up, scream, cry….

Charles leapt into action. "Open heart massage," he muttered urgently. "Margaret, rib-spreader. Major, there isn't any time to waste! Pull yourself together!"

"I'm sorry! Here! I've got it!" Margaret fumbled for the instrument. BJ could hear roaring in his ears, making it difficult for him to hear anything. He realized it was only the pattering of the rain on the aluminum roof, no, it was the frantic hammering of his heart against his ribs…

"Oh jeez."

BJ had not realized Radar had come in. He wondered if the boy had perhaps sensed that something had gone wrong in order to run into the operating room at that exact crucial moment. He was holding a mask up to his mouth with shaking hands.

"Radar," barked Colonel Potter, "get out of here!"

"Oh jeez," Radar whimpered again, unmoving. His eyes were gleaming brightly behind his glasses that sharply reflected the electric lighting.

Charles swore loudly. "Come on, Pierce! Don't you do this!"

The whole of the room seemed to be holding its breath. BJ grew lightheaded as his chest refused to rise and fall, refused to allow any breath up his windpipe. Charles bent intensely over the body of his patient that had refused to any longer connect itself in BJs mind with the same living, breathing, laughing person that was Hawkeye.

The door to the operating room opened and shut again almost soundlessly. Father Mulcahy tripped inside as if he had been another who had been supernaturally drawn to that place at that time. He began to murmur urgently beneath his breath in Latin, eyes pressed shut, hands clasped before his chest tightly, imploringly….

"You can't, Pierce!" Charles hissed fiercely across the silent expanse of operating room. "I won't let you, damn it. Come on, Pierce! Not on my watch, you don't!"

The water beating down on the ceiling seemed to be the second hand of a clock, wound to an unnatural speed, ticking away the moments, the cruel, abrupt moments in which the patient – Hawkeye – continued in a limbo between life and unspeakable, unthinkable death.

_Don't let 'im win, Hawk_. BJ felt something hot and light, like a feather, trace its way down his cheek.

Colonel Potter's head bowed. A bead of sweat ran down Charles' forehead and into his eye. He didn't blink, hands working frantically inside Hawkeye's chest.

"A pulse!" gasped Nurse Carson, voice squeezing past the sob caught in her throat.

Charles looked up, hands falling away. BJ saw Margaret's shoulder fall in a sigh of relief. There was no outbreak of cheering, however, and silence continued to beat upon his ears. BJ was too weak to cheer. For a moment he was certain he was going to start sobbing. A nob in his throat grew and twisted to an agonizing size.

Colonel Potter said waveringly, "Thank God," and turned back to his own patient.

Father Mulcahy drew his hand in a cross over his chest and then pushed his fingers under his glasses to rub his eyes. Radar seemed to lose all strength in his legs. His hand fished for the wall behind him and he used it as a guide, wobbling mutely back out of the doors.

Charles breathed heavily. "Alright," he said at last, and breathed again. "Alright. Just one last stich and we'll get him out to post-op."

* * *

As soon as the last casualty had been tended to, Margaret would have liked to collapse in her tent, burry herself on her cot, and have a good cry.

Instead, she continued to march through post-op, throat aching, eyes itching, and every molecule of her being screaming to bow down and give into the monster of tumultuous emotions that threatened to claw itself up and out of her esophagus.

With every painful step down the aisle between the rows of bed she remembered with aching clarity how much they – she – everyone – had almost lost, just six hours before. _Just six hours before_.

Hawkeye had almost died. Hawkeye would, perhaps, still die. Margaret bit her fingernails into her palms, catching the sob that threatened to escape from her lips.

Margaret was not a fragile woman. On the contrary, Margaret was a very strong, steady, and level-headed woman. She was in complete control of her emotions. She prided herself on keeping a stiff upper lip, of remaining unfazed by whatever she might encounter, by whatever horrors the war had yet thought to fling in her face.

She was ashamed of the way she had almost fallen to pieces in the OR earlier that day…night…morning. She was unsure of what time it had been, what time it was now. Sunlight was filtering grayishly through the clouds that continued to hang ominously in the sky, cascading their endless torrents of rain. Surely that meant that it was daytime, which day that daytime belonged to, however, Margaret was unsure.

She came to a stop at the foot of Hawkeye's bed. She reached unconsciously for the clipboard hanging from the bedpost and ran her eyes down his list of vitals, something she had done so frequently over the past hour that she had almost memorized it word for word.

She shut her eyes, trying to erase from memory those heart-stopping, horrifying moments in which she had thought that, perhaps, Hawkeye's still, cold, pale face lying atop the operating table might be the last time she'd ever see him before the army took him and placed him in some unmarked, light-brown casket.

For something to do, Margaret reached for Hawkeye's good arm, feeling for the pulse in his wrist. Before she knew it, she had sat down in the chair placed conveniently by the side of his cot, allowing her head to fall against the slated wooden walls, shutting her eyes against the unusually cruel lighting hanging from the ceiling.

"Who's this sitting in my chair?" said BJ's tired voice above her. Margaret's eyes snapped back open. BJ was smiling wanly, something that stretched weakly across his lips and hadn't the strength enough to reach his eyes.

Margaret tried to smile back at him. Her lips felt stiff and hard from disuse. It felt like ages since she'd last smiled.

BJ's eyes traveled to Margaret's hand. She noticed she had unintentionally entwined her fingers in Hawkeye's cool, still ones.

"Checking for a pulse," she said stiffly, and BJ smiled a smidgeon wider. Margaret wondered what people would think of her, but decided BJ really wasn't a man liable to spread any rumors. Besides, she didn't feel any immediate impulse to pull away.

"How's he doing?" said BJ, rubbing his eyes with his fists.

"No change. Chest seems to be draining well," Margaret murmured, figuring BJ already knew it. If anyone was ahead of her on memorizing that clipboard, than it was BJ. She didn't think she'd seen him leave post-op once. But, then again, she only knew that because she hadn't left once, either.

BJ sighed, long and low. He looked exhausted, almost as exhausted as Margaret felt.

"Why don't you get some sleep," she offered gently. "I can take care of post-op from here."

"No, I," BJ paused and frowned. "I don't think I could sleep."

"You'd be surprised to find what you could do if you'd only try," said Margaret.

"How 'bout you go?" said BJ. "No offense, but you look terrible."

"None taken," said Margaret, "so do you." Silence fell for a moment. Margaret could hear only the even breathing of the many sleeping soldiers, and the steady drip of the many IVs tapped into the many soldier's arms lining the walls of post-op, that and the relentless, maddening clatter of rain outside that sounded more like a solid thing than millions of individual drops of water.

Hawkeye's chest rose quietly up and down. His face was still pale. His eyes closed. He looked as if he was merely slumbering peacefully in the middle of the night, somewhere far away from this living nightmare they were currently trapped in. Margaret thought he had always looked so innocent when sleeping.

Not that she had ever particularly had opportunities to notice, of course.

BJ dragged an arm over his eyes. He rolled his head in a circle on his neck. He looked like he was about to collapse where he stood. "Why don't you drag over the other chair?" said Margaret.

"Too far a walk," he murmured. "The floor is much closer."

"You could wake Major Winchester," Margaret insisted.

"Why are you so anxious to get rid of me, Margaret?" said BJ, and smiled that hatefully forced, tired smile again. He sunk gently down to the foot of Hawkeye's bed, bracing his elbows on his knees. He added very quietly, "Charles has done enough. Let him sleep."

"So've you, BJ," said Margaret.

BJ sighed. Still quietly, as if speaking to himself, he said, "I don't think I'd have been able to do it. You and Charles – were amazing. I don't think I could. I would have frozen up or…something."

Margaret found herself speaking without first weighing what she was about to say. "It was easy when I forgot that it was Hawkeye. Whenever I remembered…that was when I –" She couldn't go on. The sob stung her throat like bile. Her eyes burned.

The rumbles of thunder overhead and distant clatter of artillery were impossible to distinguish from one another. She thought that the war had never felt so close.

She took a deep breath. Her chest ached. "Somehow I can't believe it," she whispered. "It was only a couple of days ago and he was…. What happened, BJ? How did he get hurt? Why did –"_ Why did it have to be Hawkeye? What had he done? What had they done? _

"It was a mortar. One of the other guys brought in, he saw it happen." BJ spoke in an emotionless, flat voice that sent a shiver down Margaret's spine. "The Chinese got a little too close for comfort. They were evacuating. Hawkeye went out to help a kid who'd been shot and couldn't get up. I guess that's when it hit."

Margaret focused on breathing through her nose, not knowing if hearing the details helped or only made it worse.

"The kid he went to get, he – Private McKinnon, he – Hawk was asking about him when he was first brought in."

"We didn't work on any Private McKinnon," said Margaret, she lifted her head to glance to the beds around post-op, not even having the heart to pray she might be mistaken.

"No," said BJ. "He'd lost a leg…but that wasn't all. A piece of shrapnel lodged itself in his head. He – dead on arrival."

She knew what BJ was thinking, that Hawkeye had perhaps sacrificed his life for a lost cause, was lying there now, unmoving, unconscious….

"My Dod, he could have gotten out," said BJ, voice twisted and anguished. Margaret felt her stomach clench. "What was he even doing there?" he demanded. "I should have –"

"It was his turn, BJ," Margaret said firmly, abruptly. "This isn't your fault."

BJ didn't say anything. He had buried his eyes in heels of his hands.

Almost imperceptible, Hawkeye's hand twitched within Margaret's, drawing Margaret's eyes to him. BJ looked up and also fixed his gaze on Hawkeye. He was stirring fitfully, dark hair tangled upon the white linen pillowcase, breathing growing faster and shallower.

"Hey, Hawk," BJ prompted him. He reached his hand over to touch Hawkeye lightly on the arm. Margaret realized she was still holding his hand and gently released his fingers from hers.

Hawkeye groaned quietly. His eyelids flickered.

"Hawkeye?" Margaret had not meant to whisper. She cleared her throat. "Pierce?"

Hawkeye's eyes opened fully. For a moment he stared blearily up at them. Margaret could feel him tense beside her and she had to stop herself from involuntarily reaching for his hand again.

"Hey, Hawk," said BJ again, voice soothing. "Hey, you're okay. Home sweet home."

Hawkeye didn't seem to understand. His eyes began to drift shut again.

"Hawk?" said BJ, gripping Hawkeye's arm tighter. "How you feeling, Hawk?"

"…Beej?" His voice was hoarse and weak. "Where…what…?"

"You're okay, Hawk. You're in post-op."

"You're alright, Pierce," Margaret chimed in.

Hawkeye's eyes lazily swung to fix on her face. She didn't think she'd ever noticed quite how blue they were before. "Margaret…."

She mustered a smile and briefly squeezed his fingers again.

Someone cleared his throat behind them. She looked up to see Charles staring down at them. Margaret had been so preoccupied with Hawkeye that she hadn't heard him come in.

"And what are you two doing with my patient?" he asked, eyebrows arched.

Margaret smiled weakly and leaned backward in her chair to allow Charles room to get to Hawkeye.

"Charles?" said Hawkeye. His voice was getting stronger, his eyes more alert.

"The very same, Pierce. It's about time you woke up. I'm afraid you've slept in."

Hawkeye blinked slowly. His upper lip twitched in a way that made Margaret think he was trying to smile.

Charles continued, "I must say you gave us quite a scare. I, of course, was confident in my surgeon's abilities to pull you through, but I can't speak for the others."

"It is…Charles," Hawkeye wheezed.

"Mm-hm," Charles murmured. He touched his fingers to Hawkeye's wrist. Margaret already knew his pulse was steady, but slow. He said seriously "How are you feeling, Pierce?"

"Like I…got ran over…by…a jeep."

Charles smiled sardonically, "Yes, well, that's to be expected, I'm afraid."

"How…Beej? How bad was I?"

Margaret could tell BJ was having almost as much difficulty speaking at Hawkeye was. BJ blinked. "Pretty bad, Hawk. But Charles pulled you through just fine. Don't worry."

"Well, well," said a jovial voice. Margaret almost jumped. Colonel Potter was stalking down the aisle, smile fixed firmly over his square jaw. Margaret honestly couldn't understand how the Colonel did it. "Up and at 'em, Pierce?"

"Colonel…" said Hawkeye. Margaret felt Hawkeye stiffen again. For all his talk of disregarding military discipline, he always seemed to attempt to perk up when the colonel walked into a room, even now. "It looks like…everyone's turning up…for my…." Hawkeye trailed away. Margaret wondered if he'd grown too weak to continue.

Colonel Potter covered the pause graciously. "Sure does, son. We'd have Radar in, too, but he's passed out in his office after staying up the whole night."

"I'll…have to see him…later…" murmured Hawkeye.

"Sure will," said Colonel heartily, rocking on his heels, grinning broader. "How you feeling? Any pain?"

Hawkeye's face screwed up in concentration. "I don't…" he winced as though he'd only just become aware of the waning pain medication. "Yeah," he murmured, and shut his eyes again.

Margaret felt water pool in her eyes. She felt her heart twisting. It was unbearable – unbearable to think of Hawkeye like this, lying on the cot, in pain that was liable only to get worse….

"Major," said Charles abruptly, "would you be so good as to refresh Captain Pierce's supply of morphine. .02 CCs will do it."

Margaret blinked and slipped quickly out of her chair. "Yes, of course, Major." She busied herself with collecting and administering the proper medication, finding welcome solace in the methodical work. It was easier when she had a job to do, easier to keep her mind off of it – Hawkeye – everything. She returned to Hawkeye's bedside to find the patient had once again fallen into a doze and Charles had sunk into her previously occupied chair.

"Why don't you and Hunnicutt leave to get some sleep?" Charles offered, sounding kindler then Margaret had often heard him. "Nurse Kellye and I can manage in here."

BJ opened his mouth to object but Colonel Potter intercepted him, "That sounds like a good idea, BJ. You've both had a draining night."

Margaret felt like objecting, too, but she knew the only way BJ might concede was if she allowed herself to leave as well. "Alright," she said, catching BJ's eye.

He wearily nodded. "Okay. Just keep an eye on him, alright?"

"Both eyes when I can spare them, Hunnicutt," said Charles, crossing his legs. "Now, be gone with you. No offense intended, of course, but you both look utterly terrible."


	3. Eye of the Storm

Author's Note: I've tried to do as much medical, military, and period research as possible to make this as realistic as I can, still, if any of my readers notice any glaring mistakes, please let me know so I can correct them. Thanks.

* * *

Chapter Two – Eye of the Storm:

"Aneurysm?" Pierce said groggily. His eyes were clouded with medication and sleep. He struggled weakly to get into a sitting position and Charles laid a hand on his shoulder, keeping him down.

"Pseudo," Charles answered.

"Aortic rupture?"

"I'll thank the patient to keep from diagnosing his own injuries," said Charles.

Pierce coughed weakly in way that made Charles thing he'd been trying to laugh.

Charles relented, "Partial tear. I managed to get to it in time. You lost quite a bit of blood, however."

"How much did I take?"

"So far ten units of blood, two plasma," said Charles. "Plus one." He indicated the bag of whole blood attached to the IV stand and currently dripping into Hawkeye's good arm.

Hawkeye shut his eyes but continued to speak, "How's the lung?"

"There was, as you'd guessed, a pulmonary laceration of your left lung. I got to it before it collapsed."

For a moment Hawkeye didn't speak and Charles began to wonder if his patient had once again fallen asleep. "It hasn't collapsed yet, you mean."

"Yes well," Charles cleared his throat. "We're all keeping our fingers crossed, Pierce."

"Dangerous thing to do when operating," whispered Hawkeye.

Charles bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from smiling. At the same time his stomach walls felt as if they were being eaten away by acid.

"How's the arm?" said Hawkeye. He opened his eyes again, searching Charles' face. "I can't feel a thing. I'm asking you because I know BJ will just lie. He's a…good friend, but…a lousy…." Hawkeye didn't continue, eyelids slipping shut again. He breathed shallowly, face pallid, lips slightly parted.

"Nothing very complicated," said Charles. "Palmar Barton's fracture, shoulder dislocated, you fractured your left clavicle. I suppose you'll also want to know that you suffered fractures to your first, seventh, and tenth ribs."

"Not really, no," said Hawkeye, barely moving his lips. "Any damage to the brachial plexus?"

Charles' throat somehow seemed abnormally dry. He coughed again. "We'll have to wait and see, Pierce. But we shouldn't, of course, rule out the chance that the lack of feeling your experiencing is due more to the pain medication than any nerve damage," Charles answered.

Hawkeye mouthed the word _alright_, but appeared to be growing too weak for any more conversation. Charles lifted a hand and felt Hawkeye's forehead with the back of his fist. He frowned and stood from his chair.

Hawkeye murmured. "Do I have a temperature?"

"Nothing unusual, considering the anesthesia," said Charles quickly. He left to retrieve a thermometer and returned to Hawkeye's side. He said while sliding the thermometer between Hawakeye's lips, "Now, as difficult as it will be for you, try not to speak for a moment."

"Sure thing," Hawkeye breathed.

"If you're a good little boy, you'll get a balloon," Charles quipped.

After a moment he removed the thermometer from Hawkeye's mouth and held it up to read it.

"m'I gonna live?" Hawkeye said.

"You're not getting out of the army that easily, Pierce," said Charles, and walked across post-op to address Nurse Kellye, who was scanning a clipboard of another patient.

"How is he, Doctor?" Nurse Kellye said, looking up as Charles approached.

"He's got a low-grade fever. Administer three units of penicillin at four hour intervals."

"Yes, Doctor."

Charles turned as the door opened, letting in the noise of the still falling rain outside. Major Houlihan marched in, hood of her windbreaker pulled over her head.

"Aren't you out of bed a little early, Major?" said Charles, cocking an eyebrow. "You've only been away for a little over two hours."

Margaret effectively dodged his question, saying, "I checked the Swamp. Hunnicutt's out like a light. How is he?" She inclined her head to Hawkeye's cot.

"He's running a slight temperature," said Charles. "Nothing to worry about, 101.4. I've prescribed regular doses of penicillin. Just as a precaution, mind."

"There's no need to sugarcoat it, Doctor," Margaret snapped.

"I shouldn't like to be accused of sugarcoating anything," said Charles.

"They only sugarcoating Winchester's do concerns their fancy-pants crystalized pineapple, I suppose," said Margaret bitingly.

"I don't want to run the risk of any unnecessary complications, Major," said Charles brusquely. "You know as well as I do that Pierce, in this state, could hardly be expected to survive any serious infection –"

"Yes, I know, I know," said Margaret testily.

"Not to mention the risk of him contracting pneumonia is worryingly high, what with his broken ribs and damaged lung –"

"Thank you, I know, Charles," said Margaret. An edge to her voice warned Charles not to continue. Margaret flung her hood off her head, revealing a tangled mess of hair. Charles noticed her eyes were bloodshot. He wondered if she had been crying. He remembered that she had, after all, had barely four hours of sleep in the last twenty-four.

He said gently, "What Pierce really needs is to be transferred to the Evac Hospital in Seoul."

"Yes," Margaret murmured, "Radar's been on it for the past hour. Apparently, lines are out all over the place because of the storm. That was why we didn't get a wire that Battalion Aid had been hit in the first place. We were supposed to know that Hawkeye was coming in on that bus."

"I do have to admit that was rather a nasty surprise," said Charles.

Margaret appeared not to be listening to him. "If only it wasn't for this damned rain!" She said, voicing the same frustration that Charles had refused to show for the past hours. "Not to mention the shelling! It's stopping anyone from getting through." As if in mockery, a rumble of artillery echoed in the distance.

"Well, we mustn't lose faith in our trusty Company Clerk," said Charles. "After all, he's never failed us yet; I see no reason why he should do so now."

Margaret sighed. She cast her arm in a hopeless sort of gesture back over to Hawkeye's bed. "How's he doing, otherwise?"

"Fine." Charles answered. "He was awake a minute ago."

"He's awake!" Margaret's eyebrows shot up. "Do you mean to tell me he's probably been listening to every word we've said?"

"I doubt any of it will come as a surprise to Pierce, Major."

"Yes, well – still!" Margaret huffed.

"And were you not just a minute ago accusing me of sugarcoating?" said Charles. His upper lip pulled into a smile.

Margaret sighed again, but her eyes brightened slightly. It was probably the closest thing she'd been to amusement for hours, Charles thought.

"I guess I'll go sit with him again," she said.

Charles rose his eyebrows questioningly.

She scowled. "Oh, shut up."

"I was not aware I had said anything at all, Major," Charles allowed himself a smile as Margaret left him in a huff, marching over to sit beside Pierce.

* * *

Radar caught himself asleep with his cheek pressed against the keys of the typewriter for the second time that afternoon. At least he thought it was afternoon. Truthfully, everything was sort of fuzzy and the stormy sky wasn't helping much, as – really – it might be any time at all, morning, noon, or night.

The sheet of paper in the typewriter was covered in a garbled collection of letters he'd smashed onto the page with his cheek. Radar fixed his glasses and peered through the smudged lenses to read the clock nailed above Colonel Potter's door. The hands were fixed at three quarters of the way to sixteen-hundred. Radar's mouth slipped open in surprise. That meant he'd been dozing for about twenty minutes!

What if he'd missed something important? A phone call or a telegraph or Colonel Potter wanted to send a message –

"Radar?"

"I didn't mean to, sir!" Radar leapt to his feet, chair spinning backwards as Colonel Potter came through his swinging office door.

"Didn't mean to what?" Colonel Potter demanded.

"Nothing, sir!" said Radar. He reached over and hastily snatched the ruined page from the typewriter, crumpling it into a ball in his fist and tossing it onto the floor.

"Oh…well, that's good, then," said Colonel Potter. "Any word from ICOR, yet?"

"No, sir. At least, I don't think so, sir." Radar kicked the balled-up piece of paper under his desk.

The colonel swore, pounding his hand into his fist, "Where are these people? Don't they understand we've got a crisis on our hands? One of my best darn surgeons is lying in post-op with his chest blown apart!"

Radar felt something hitch in his throat. "Yes, sir. I've been trying but the storm's interrupting our frequency."

"Alright," said Colonel Potter, taking a deep breath, "buzz your friend Sparky again, see how they stand in getting an ambulance up here."

"Yes, sir."

"And, Radar – you've got letters pressed into your cheek."

"Yes, sir," said Radar, already reaching for the phone. The door to the office flung open, letting in a wave of wind and cold rain. Klinger burst through, wearing a soaked knit shawl and a wicker hat, the flowers of which drooped depressingly over the edge of the brim.

"Colonel Potter!" Klinger exclaimed, eyes alight, water spilling onto the floor from the brim of his hat.

"Not now, Klinger!" Colonel Potter bellowed. "I'm in no mood for any more bad news!"

"I'm afraid I can't help it, sir," said Klinger, shaking his head. "I've got a Korean boy out here who says his hut just got smashed by a tree. Must have been a lightning strike, sir. Says his mom and little sister are still inside – they're both unconscious."

Colonel Potter swore loudly again. Just then the child in question slipped through the door, a tiny Korean boy who looked no older than eight or nine years-old. "_Ppalli waseo_! _Ppalli waseo_!" he chattered. "Mother, sister, hurt. Come. Please come!"

"Alright, son, we're coming," said Colonel Potter, reaching over to lay a hand atop the boy's drenched hair. "Radar, go wake Hunnicutt. I don't think I'll be able to handle this by myself."

"Right away, Colonel Potter." Radar leapt forward, grabbing his jacket off the hook and flinging it over his shoulders.

Klinger, you know where the kid's hut is?"

"Yes, sir!" said Klinger.

"Good." Colonel Potter said to the Korean boy, "You stay here, son. Radar –"

"Sir?"

"Get the kid a cup of cocoa when you get back."

"Sure thing, Colonel." As Radar swept out of the office and into the downpour he heard the Colonel swear again.

"As if it wasn't enough to be caught in a warzone, we had to be hit with a damned typhoon!"

Radar slipped and skidded across the compound to the Swamp. He peered through the mesh window on the door only long enough to see that BJ was still sprawled motionless across his cot before knocking briefly and then swinging open the door.

"Captain Hunnicutt, sir? BJ?"

BJ's eyes snapped open. He sat up sharply in bed. Radar jumped.

"What is it? What's happened? Is Hawkeye alright?"

"Yes, sir, he's fine, sir, I mean, I don't know –" Radar became aware that he was babbling. "I mean, Colonel Potter wants you. A tree fell on some Koreans' house – a mom and her little girl…."

"My God, even the trees are against us now?"

"I guess so, sir."

BJ threw off his blanket and stood, grabbing for a pair of trousers crumpled at the foot of his bed. "How's Hawkeye, Radar? Have you heard anything?"

Radar swallowed. "I don't know, sir. He was asleep when I went to see him. I think maybe Major Winchester and Major Houlihan are in post-op now."

"Margaret?" said BJ, he smiled a smile that Radar thought looked sort of tired and worn out. "I guess it's just like her to trick me to get some sleep while she sneaks back to post-op. How long have I been sleeping, anyway? What time is it?"

"Almost four, sir."

"You've let me sleep for seven hours?" BJ demanded, pulling his head through his already buttoned shirt.

"Colonel Potter said to let you rest," Radar said quickly, not wanting BJ to think it had wholly been of Radar's doing.

BJ shook his head. "I should have been up helping with the wounded."

Radar didn't know what to say. The whole situation felt so – so darned hopeless and confused. "Colonel Potter wants to hurry, sir. Klinger's waiting with a jeep," he said instead.

"Sure, Radar," BJ sighed.

"I guess I've got to run now," said Radar. "I've got some hot cocoa to make." He left BJ shoving his feet into his boots, launching back into the cold rain and racing as quickly as possible to the mess tent.

He hadn't forgotten about calling Sparky again. But there just seemed to be so much to do. Why, a person could only be in one place at one time. Honestly, though, he didn't think calling Sparky again would do much good. He'd already called something like twenty times and the answer was always the same, no one was getting through to anywhere except for the Chinese, and everyone else was doing everything they could to stop the Chinese from getting through to anywhere else. Plus, this rain was interrupting radio reception, and telegraph lines were down just about everywhere.

Radar stifled a sigh and ran back to the office, clutching a mug of steaming cocoa in one hand and cupping the top of the mug with the other to stop the rain from getting in. He clattered through the door to find the little Korean boy had made himself right at home. He was wearing Radar's hat, grinning, and spinning himself in Radar's swiveling chair.

"Hey," said Radar, "don't do that, you'll get yourself sick."

The boy laughed and dug his heels into the floor to bring himself to a halt. "Doctors go to mother and sister?" he asked, blinking.

"Oh yeah, sure," said Radar, "we've got real fine doctors here. You don't have to worry about your mom and little sis at all. Here," he placed the mug of cocoa on top of the desk, "you drink this to get warmed up. You're all wet."

"Yes, _gang-u_. Water." said the little boy, reaching for the mug.

"Careful now, it's hot," said Radar. He reached over for the phone again and gave the telephone magneto a couple of hard cranks before putting the receiver to his ear.

"Sparky? Hey Sparky? Can you hear me?" Radar pressed the receiver closer to his ear, speaking loudly. The little boy looked at him curiously, slurping his cocoa carefully.

"Yeah, I know the storm's making it hard to hear," Radar continued. "Listen, how's it coming with getting some transport through to Seoul? …Yeah? …Sparky it's real important – yeah, I know… Oh, jeez, really? Gosh, how soon? …Yeah, listen, keep trying to get an ambulance up here… Thanks, Sparky."

Radar placed the receiver back with a clatter. "Oh, boy," he muttered, and darted toward the colonel's office. He remembered that Colonel Potter had already left and spun in a circle, charging toward post-op.

He barged through the doors, "Major Winchester –"

"What is it _now_, Corporal?" said Major Winchester, looking tired and bothered. He was standing at the desk in the corner, measuring out something into a syringe.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Major, but I just got word that the Chinese have overrun Hill Eerie. We've got casualties on the way."

"Good heavens, if we didn't have enough to worry about already!" Major Winchester exclaimed.

"What is it, Corporal?" Major Houlihan approached. Her face suggested that she had already guessed the news wasn't good.

"Casualties on the way, ma'am. We've got about fifteen or twenty minutes."

"We're already full up!" said Major Houlihan, "Where are we going to put them all? Is there still no word on getting transportation down to Seoul?"

"No, Major."

Major Houlihan sighed, clenching her teeth. "I'd better go see Colonel Potter."

Radar said quickly, remembering in the midst of everything else he had to worry about, "He's not here, ma'am. He's –"

"He's what?" Major Houlihan demanded, eyes flashing. "What do you mean he's not here?"

Radar felt his words gush out of his lips, "A Korean family's hut got hit in the storm. The little boy's in the office. He says his mom and little sister were hurt. Colonel Potter and Captain Hunnicutt left to –"

"Hunnicutt's gone, too?" Major Winchester interrupted. "What on earth were they thinking? We're already down one surgeon –"

"They'll be back as soon as they can!" said Radar. His throat was tight. He was exhausted, aching, and worried, and all of this wasn't his fault.

"How many casualties are coming in?" said Major Houlihan, she seemed to have regained control of herself. At least she wasn't yelling anymore.

Radar swallowed, "I don't know. A whole bunch."

"Alright," she ran a hand through her hair and straightened her shoulders. "Come on, Charles. I'd better go tell the nurses. And Corporal –"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"You stay and monitor post-op. We're going to need all the hands we can get to manage the casualties."

"But I've got a whole bunch of stuff already to do!" said Radar, fear bubbling in his stomach. "Besides, I'm not a doctor, what if –" what if something went wrong? What if a patient needed help? What if Hawkeye –

"You'll be fine, Corporal; I'll send in Lieutenant Baker," said Major Houlihan impatiently but not unkindly. "If anything happens that you don't know how to handle, come get one of the doctors."

"Yes, ma'am, but –" Major Houlihan was already stalking toward the doors, following Major Winchester. Radar could feel his heart pattering quickly in his chest. He took a deep breath to try to calm himself. He looked over his shoulder to the row of beds down the wall, eyes falling immediately on the still, dark head of Hawkeye. Radar chewed on his lip.

He hadn't seen Hawkeye when he was awake yet. All he kept remembering was seeing the captain lying on that stretcher on that bus, covered in blood, lying in the operating room, chest split open with Major Winchester trying to pump life back into his heart –

"Wait, Major –" Radar tripped after Major Houlihan's retreating figure.

She turned around, "Yes, Corporal?"

"How's he – well, you know," Radar swallowed again and whispered confidentially. "Is he okay?"

Major Houlihan seemed to know exactly who Radar was talking about. "He's fine, Radar," she said, smiling wearily. "You'll do fine."

Radar slunk unhappily down the center aisle of post-op. Most of the patients seemed to be resting peacefully, perhaps lulled to sleep by the lazy sound of the pattering rain. A couple of guys were sitting up in bed near the end of the room, playing cards together. Radar felt horribly miserable and useless. It wouldn't be so bad if he could go back into his office, perhaps patch in a few calls to ICOR, try to get _something_ done –

"Hey, soldier," said a weak voice, and Radar turned. "Long time no see."

It was Hawkeye. His eyes were open but that was about the only thing that indicated he was awake. He was utterly still, covered to his chest in blankets, left shoulder wrapped in white gauze, lying with his head sunken into his pillow. Radar felt his stomach tumble but then remembered he should probably smile.

"Oh, hey. How are you –" he stopped. Radar was so stupid. He could plainly see for himself how Hawkeye was doing. Hawkeye probably didn't want a whole bunch of meddlesome questions.

"I've been better," Hawkeye breathed.

Radar choked a laugh out through his clogged throat. He stood anxiously at the foot of Hawkeye's bed. He didn't like to see him like this. Hawkeye was supposed to be bounding across the compound, cracking jokes and smiling. It was…it was like bad dream, seeing him like this.

"Is there –" said Radar awkwardly. "Is there anything I can get you maybe?"

"A couple of martinis and Nurse Able in a nightgown," Hawkeye managed to get out, coughing feebly.

The door at the end of post-op opened and shut. Radar didn't look up to see who it was.

"Who's your little friend?" Hawkeye croaked.

"Huh? – Oh," Radar saw that it was the little Korean boy who had wandered in. He was rocking on his feet and staring at Radar like he wanted to tell him something. "Hey," said Radar, "Sorry, I almost forgot about you."

"Doctor come soon? _Eomeoni wa jamae_? Soon?"

"Oh, sure," said Radar, "they'll be back real soon."

Hawkeye's eyebrows furrowed. "What happened?"

"Oh, his hut got smashed by a tree. BJ and Colonel Potter went to see what they could do to help."

"Anyone hurt?"

"I don't know," said Radar, frowning. He hadn't meant to excite Hawkeye. "His mom and little sister maybe, but…."

Hawkeye shut his eyes and swore quietly under his breath. He shifted uneasily, pushing with his right arm, but winced and then when limp. Radar could tell that he was experiencing, perhaps, the same indescribable frustration at the situation as Radar was.

"You sure I can't get you anything, Hawkeye?" Radar asked again.

"Unless you can pump .02 more CCs of morphine into me," said Hawkeye with his eyes closed.

"Sorry I – I don't know how to do that," said Radar.

"It's 'kay," murmured Hawkeye.

"You wanna rest now?" said Radar.

"Yeah…but, how 'bout you stick around for a little longer, 'kay, Radar?"

"Kay," said Radar glumly. He settled in unhappily on the chair by Hawkeye's bed. The rest of post-op was quiet and he could catch no sound yet of approaching wounded or the return of Colonel Potter's jeep. The little Korean boy stared from Hawkeye to Radar for a moment before coming over to wiggle himself onto Radar's lap. Radar breathed deeply, feeling the gentle pressure of the little boy's head against his chest to be oddly comforting, almost like a life-sized, breathing teddy bear. Radar sighed and the little boy echoed him, the both of them settling in to wait.

* * *

Klinger tossed his ruined and wet white velvet gloves into the back of the jeep, leaping out of his seat and landing on the muddy road with a splash. He'd exchanged his high-heels for combat boots after losing a pair of green suede pumps in the mud two days ago. Unfortunately, the clunky brown boots clashed horribly with his pink swing skirt and Peter Pan collared blouse, but he honestly wasn't thinking very much about that now.

"Grab hold of that end, Klinger!" Colonel Potter bellowed across the pounding rain and roaring wind, indicating the large pine limb that had fallen across the entrance of the ramshackle hut by the side of the road.

"Yes, sir!" Klinger yelled back, grasping for a handhold amongst the tangle of branches and needles that snagging his arms and skirt. He closed his hands as well as he could around the limb and heaved, rolling it away from the doorway.

"Close enough," shouted Captain Hunnicutt, clutching a medical bag in one hand. "I can get through." He scrambled over the mess of tree branches, slipping inside the dark opening Klinger had managed to make into the hut. Lighting cracked and thunder rumbled overhead. Klinger stared cautiously up at the swaying branches of the other towering pine trees lining the side of the road.

"How's it look, BJ?" Colonel Potter asked, attempting to climb over the branches and into the hut as well.

"Damn, it's dark in here," BJ shouted back. "Not too bad, Colonel. The little girl's awake. Her mom's unconscious, though. Send Klinger in with the stretcher! I'll carry out the girl." Klinger dashed back to the jeep before Colonel Potter had a chance to utter the order.

When he returned back to the opening in the hut, clutching the stretcher at his side, he could hear BJ's soothing voice from inside. "It's okay, honey. You're safe, now." BJ emerged a moment later carrying the little girl, who looked no more than two or three year old. She was clutching BJ around the neck like a baby monkey would its mother, eyes wide and small body quivering all over. A trail of blood slipped down her cheek.

"Here you are, sweetheart," BJ murmured gently into her dark head of hair. "You go to Colonel Potter, now. Don't worry. You're okay."

BJ eased the little girl into Colonel Potter's waiting arms, who examined the cut on her cheek gently.

"How's the mother look?" Colonel Potter asked.

"Okay, I think. Let's get her out of here first. Come on, Klinger." Klinger handed the stretcher through to BJ before climbing over the mess of branches. He stumbled after the captain into the dark and musty hut.

The tree seemed to have collapsed directly on top of the little structure, crumbling the walls and scattering pieces of the thatched roof over the dirt floor. Klinger ducked under the reaching branches that spilled through the broken roof, letting rain drip onto the floor.

BJ led him over to the crumpled form of the mother lying on the floor, half-way covered with a large limb.

"She was on top of her daughter," BJ murmured, "almost like she'd thrown herself on top of her to protect her from the worst of it."

Klinger helped BJ move the branches off the woman's back, and then helped roll her onto the stretcher. He backed up slowly, shoulders hunched, and clutching one end of the stretcher tightly in his hands. BJ followed, holding the other end of the stretcher, medical bag slung over his shoulder.

Together they carried her out of the hut and onto the back of the jeep. "Alright," said Colonel Potter, "let's get out of this storm."

Just then, Klinger caught a rumbling sound in the distance that didn't sound like thunder or artillery. He cocked his head, listening as the sound grew closer and more recognizable.

"Sounds like trucks, sir," said Klinger as Colonel Potter turned his head.

"Maybe they've finally got someone through to get to Hawkeye," said BJ, a hopeful lilt to his voice that Klinger had not heard for many hours.

"Let's hope so," murmured Colonel Potter, but just then the bus rolled into sight, mud flying off its wheels, windshield wipers swinging furiously. The driver beeped the horn as it went speeding past the jeep. That bus was followed by row of jeeps with stretchers strapped on the back of them.

"Casualties," Colonel Potter said tersely. "Headed up our way. Come on."

"We're in for another tough one," said Klinger, noting another bus that came in out of the mist in the distance.

"As if anything else could go wrong," said Colonel Potter gruffly.

"Something already did, sir," said Klinger sadly, yanking the jeep into gear and pressing his foot on the gas. "I tore my skirt trying to get out of the hut."

* * *

Ending Note: Don't ask me where the side story of the Korean family came from. I guess I needed to come up with some sort of distraction for poor BJ. Thanks for the reviews.


	4. Flood

Author's Note: As the unidentified "Guest" pointed out, leaving Radar completely alone in post-op with tons of injured soldiers would not have been a smart move. Although it doesn't turn out to be a plot-point, I went back to revise it with a "I'll send in Lieutenant Baker" line for Margaret.

* * *

Chapter Three – Flood:

As usual, Father Mulcahy felt like a bumbling, clumsy fool as the wounded rumbled into the compound, coming in thick and fast. He tried to help wherever and whenever he was needed, rushing forward to carry litters into pre-op, sharing a comforting word when the opportunity presented itself, or supporting a soldier with functioning legs off a bus, but more often than not he found himself getting in the way of doctors, nurses, and corpsmen who were scrambling passed him with surer and more readily defined duties.

He supposed he could always be certain of the one duty he alone could perform, that of tending to those unfortunate boys who did not make it through the operating room doors, or did not make it out again. Over the course of the war, Father Mulcahy had found this particular duty to be his most reluctantly done, sorely heartrending, and indescribably painful. In fact, he had almost grown to hate it.

For this feeling he was secretly ashamed, for how could a priest – any priest, in any situation – ever come to despise one of his most sacred, hallowed responsibilities? These precious souls were in his hands, and that was a fact he could never forget and trembled under the weight of.

Father Mulcahy shut his own eyes as his fingers gently touched the eyelids of the dead soldier before him, cold, pale, and young face drenched by the pouring rain, like tears of the angels who most certainly were weeping in heaven at such a display of meaningless hate and death. He breathed deeply as he drew a cross over his chest, lips murmuring in Latin the phrases that had grown all too familiar in these mere two years.

"Watch it, Father. Sorry."

Father Mulcahy's eyes snapped back open in time to see BJ rush by in a splattering of mud, carrying a pressure bandage in one hand and a bag of plasma in the other.

Father Mulcahy climbed achingly back to his feet, knees soaked through with mud and water. He bent at the waist to cover the dead soldier's face with a blanket, and waved over a corpsman to help him carry the stretcher away from the rest of the wounded.

"Hey, Father!" Colonel Potter's voice boomed across the compound. He was in the middle of directing two nurses carrying a litter and rushing toward pre-op to scrub. "Get over to the OR! We're gonna need all the hands we can get, seeing as we're only working three tables."

Father Mulcahy felt a familiar pang in his chest when he remembered Hawkeye lying limp in post-op. Every moment, every movement of the camp, seemed to ring painfully of his absence.

"Right away, Colonel!" He stopped to pick up the end of another stretcher to carry before heading into pre-op.

Time in the operating room always acted in a most peculiar way, especially on days like these, when the casualties seemed unending. It seemed almost as if time ceased to be an entity, stopped holding any substance, mind, or matter. It twisted and buckled to its delight, laws of physics cast aside, sometimes moving unbearable slowly, sometimes racing past at breakneck speed, but always elusive and unpredictable.

Father Mulcahy knew not for how long he stood in OR, assisting the doctors, running hither and thither with instruments and refilling bags of IV fluid, but when he finally stepped away from the last patient he discovered that it was long into the night, and – of course – still raining outside.

"Alright, Klinger," Colonel Potter's voice was exceedingly heavy. He pealed his gloves away from his fingers and tugged his mask from his mouth. Father Mulcahy thought the colonel looked more like an old man than he ever had before. "Bring this one out."

"Mess tent's nearly full, sir," said Corporal Klinger, hat pins still sticking sporadically into his dark curls even though he had discarded his hat at the beginning of the session.

"Good thing that's the last of them, then," Colonel Potter answered.

"My God," said Major Houlihan, falling against the wall, "how many was that?"

"Too many, Major," said Colonel Potter.

"I for one, could use a nice, long, relaxing shower," Major Winchester said wiping his forehead with the back of his arm.

"Go stand outside for twenty minutes," said BJ. "I for one could use a nice, long, relaxing coma."

It was a welcome relief to hear a bit of humor interspersed in the doctors' conversation, however wry it might have been. It had been so noticeable lacking those past couple of days. Father Mulcahy sighed and rolled his shoulders. He'd only just realized how much his body ached from standing so long. "I do believe I'll go turn in," he said.

"I think that's a good idea, Padre," said Colonel Potter. "I think it's about time everyone hit the sack."

Margaret said, "I'll take first shift, Colonel."

"Oh, no you don't, Major – you either, Winchester," said Colonel Potter as Charles opened his mouth. "Both of you have been on your feet for almost twenty-four hours, now."

"I'll take first shift, Colonel," said BJ quietly.

Colonel Potter raised his hand. "_I'll_ take first shift, Hunnicutt," he said firmly. "I don't need any more of my medical personal laid up, especially not for something like fainting from exhaustion."

BJ looked as if he was going to protest, but a stern glance from Colonel Potter sent him shuffling out of the OR. Charles and Margaret followed him. Father Mulcahy stopped outside briefly to discard his soiled gloves and don his windbreaker hung on one of the hooks. He bid the others good-night and then tripped out into the soaked compound.

He was halfway to his tent when he felt a nagging, persistent pull in his stomach. He remembered that it had been quite a while since he'd last seen Hawkeye, and wondered…. True, it was very late. The odds of Hawkeye being awake weren't good. After all, the man was supposed to be resting as much as possible. But…perhaps it might be a comfort to see him, whether sleeping or awake.

Father Mulcahy turned on his heel and backtracked to post-op. He eased the door open and stepped inside. It was dark except for the lighted desk lamp at the end of the room. Colonel Potter had already arrived; he was sitting at the desk with his head in his hands. Father Mulcahy suspected the Colonel was truthfully much more tired than he had let on in the OR.

Father Mulcahy shuffled up the aisle and Colonel Potter raised his head.

"Padre," said the Colonel with a nod.

"Colonel," Father Mulcahy said back.

Colonel Potter didn't ask Father Mulcahy what he was doing there. Father Mulcahy thought the Colonel could guess why. After all, he was a very sharp man.

"How's Hawkeye?" said Father Mulcahy, eyes drawn to his still form on the bed halfway down the wall.

Colonel Potter sighed. "His fever's getting worse. Not breathing very easily, either."

"Infection?" said Father Mulcahy.

"I'm afraid so," said Colonel Potter. "Possibly a touch of postoperative pneumonia. Ordinarily we should be able to knock that out with antibiotics, but because there's already so much damage to his lung…."

Father Mulcahy felt a sigh rise up and choke him in his throat as Colonel Potter's voice drifted away. It was almost silent within the ward.

"How is the little Korean family you and BJ brought in?"

"They're doing alright," said Colonel Potter. "The girl wasn't more than a little stunned. The mother's got a concussion, mild abrasions, nothing to worry about."

"Thank God," said Father Mulcahy.

"Sure thing, Padre," said Colonel Potter. He kneaded his forehead with his thin and knotted fingers.

"You look exhausted, Colonel," Father Mulcahy said softly.

"Probably 'cuz I am, Padre. Mentally, physically, and emotionally. Seeing all this," Colonel Potter waved his hand over post-op, "it certainly has a way of aging you that time on its own can't match."

"Perhaps it would be better if you went to your tent?" Father Mulcahy suggested tentatively. "I could…."

"That's alright, Father," Colonel Potter interrupted. "But there are more to tend now than just Hawkeye. I'd better make rounds to the mess tent pretty soon."

"Yes," Father Mulcahy murmured. "Yes, I suppose so." He felt so desperately hopeless, as if there was nothing here that he was able to do, nothing he had ever been able to do.

_All our times are in Thy hand. All diseases come at Thy call, and go at Thy bidding –_

There was a shuddering, choking sort of gasp from one of the wounded, a sort of muffled shout of pain. Father Mulcahy started and whirled around. Colonel Potter had already jumped to his feet.

Father Mulcahy could hear the flurry of ruffling sheets, the ragged, painful gasping of the wounded soldier. Colonel Potter darted forward.

"Light, Padre!" he barked. Father Mulcahy fumbled into motion. He flicked on the light switch attached to the wall, flooding the ward with brightness. Father Mulcahy blinked passed the sudden vividness of his surroundings, racing forward to see what it was he could do.

Colonel Potter was bent over one of the patients, wrestling with his thrashing arms. Colonel Potter's elbow hit the IV stand. It wobbled and hit the wall, bag half-way filled with blood swinging wildly.

"Oh, Lord, no!" Father Mulcahy felt the unintentional gasp – prayer or mere outcry he did not know – leap from his lips. His stomach wrenched violently.

It was Hawkeye. His blue eyes were wide and terrified, his face pale and etched with pain. His lips opened and closed helplessly as though trying to swallow air that no longer slipped through his windpipe and reached his lungs.

Father Mulcahy suddenly couldn't breathe. He couldn't think, couldn't feel, couldn't comprehend….

"Ruptured aneurysm!" Colonel Potter said tersely. "Collapsed lung! Father, get Winchester in here stat!"

He obeyed without question. There was no time to question. Father Mulcahy skidded across the floor, heart pumping frantically in his chest, skin covered in a cold sweat. His glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose. He pushed them back in front of his eyes, and realized his fingers were shaking.

He crashed through the doors and he almost ran headlong into Radar, whose face was pale and eyes large with fear and shock, evidently attracted by the commotion.

"Father –"

"It's Hawkeye! Hurry!" Father Mulcahy's voice was high and shaking. He could hardly recognize himself. He could hardly remember making any decision to speak. He felt the rain wash over him like a single sheet of water as he stumbled into the compound. Reflex seemed to have taken over, grasped control of his limbs, his thoughts, his very being –

His boots slipped through the mud and his shoulder collided with the door of the Swamp, which flew open with a clatter. BJ sat up straight in his bed, eyes wide, slightly maddened. Charles, too, sat up abruptly without a word from Father Mulcahy, already throwing off his covers.

"What in heaven's –"

"It's Hawkeye!" Father Mulcahy shrieked. "For God's sake, hurry!"

BJ was up like a shot, shoving his feet into his boots, grabbing a fistful of his robe and jostling past Father Mulcahy and into the rain. Charles followed right on his heels, throwing his robe over his shoulders as he ran, mud streaming from behind his heels.

Father Mulcahy stood there for a moment, gasping to try to catch his breath, mind racing, a blurred frantic swirl of thoughts that refused to focus on anything definite, any next course of action. Margaret –

He slipped back across the compound to the major's tent; her door was already swinging open.

"What it, Father?" she asked sharply. "I heard running –"

"It's – Hawkeye," Father Mulcahy gasped. Breath tore painfully up his chest. Rain slithered chillingly down the collar of his shirt. "Quickly – ruptured aneurysm –" Father Mulcahy had no need to say more. Margaret, paled, shocked, but resolute had already flung herself into the swirling rain outside, pulling the tie of her robe tightly.

_As Thou hast delivered his eyes from tears, his feet from falling, and his soul from death –_

Father Mulcahy darted after her. His boot slipped in the mud and he slid onto his stomach, fingers sinking into the soft ground, mud splattering his glasses. He struggled back to his feet and ran onwards. _If only there might be an end to this dreadful rain_, he thought fleetingly.

The door to post-op was still swinging shut when Father Mulcahy reached it. He was in time to see Major Houlihan skid to a stop at the foot of Hawkeye's cot. She was already reaching out a hand to unhook his IV from the stand.

"He's going into heart failure. I'll have to go back in again," Charles was saying, leaning urgently over Hawkeye, whom had been quieted, perhaps with a sedative. His breathing scraped across the air, coming in shallow, wheezing gaps.

The door at the other end of the ward clattered open and Radar tripped inside, untangling the tubes of an oxygen mask. "Here!" he announced, skidding to a stop before BJ, whom was kneeling across the bed from Winchester, gripping Hawkeye's unbandaged forearm tightly in his fist.

"Alright, Margaret you'll be assisting again," Colonel Potter said rapidly. He was pressed against the wall to allow Major Winchester full access to his patient. "Hunnicutt, you're on anesthesia."

"His temperature's 103.9," said Margaret shrilly. "That's too high to operate."

"I cannot _not_ operate, Major," said Charles tightly.

"She's right, Winchester. It's risky," said Colonel Potter, voice low and gruff, hiding goodness knows what emotions, thought Father Mulcahy. "It's your call."

Father Mulcahy focused on breathing deeply. The recovery ward had gone oddly still. Charles was still bending over Hawkeye. Father Mulcahy could see the tautness of his shoulders showing through his robe. Radar stood trembling in the middle of the hall. Father Mulcahy could see unshed tears pooling in his eyes behind his glasses.

_What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me, and resolve to offer unto Thee the sacrifices of thanksgiving –_

BJ looked up, one hand clamped over the oxygen mask that was covering Hawkeye's nose and mouth. He fixed his steely gray eyes on Charles' bent head. His face was pale. He looked stricken.

"My God, Charles," he whispered, voice carrying sharply across the thick silence. "He'll die if you don't."

Charles breathed deeply. His shoulders heaved. "Hunnicutt's right," he said. He stood abruptly. "Get him into the OR. I'm scrubbing up."

Charles swept down the hall toward the operating room, robe sweeping behind him like the cloak of a monarch. Father Mulcahy caught a glimpse of his pale face as the major passed and was startled at the look of unexpected emotion he saw etched on the major's face. Father Mulcahy suddenly felt a pressing urge to reach for the major's arm, to tell him…tell him something. Something that might be remotely encouraging, that might, somehow, lessen this terrible weight upon the major's shoulders, this terrible knowledge that if he should fail –

Radar had dashed away and returned pushing a gurney. BJ and Colonel Potter gently lifted Hawkeye onto it, Margaret reaching over their shoulders to maintain her hold on Hawkeye's IV.

"Colonel, what can I do?" said Father Mulcahy, watching as Radar, BJ and Margaret hastily rolled Hawkeye after Major Winchester.

"Pray, Padre."

"Colonel, what else?" _Lord,_ _anything else_. Let him do something, anything….

"I'd be thankful, Father," said Colonel Potter. Father Mulcahy saw the colonel's eyes were hard and gleaming, watching with a clenched jaw as BJ disappeared through the far door, pushing the tail end of the gurney. "You're one of the few around here who have even that much they're able to do."

Colonel Potter drew a deep, shuddering breath, and seemed to regain his composure.

"Hey, doc?" croaked one of the other patients.

"What is it, son?" Colonel Potter approached the patient, who looked pallid and shaken after witnessing the past episode.

"Hey, he gonna be alright, doc?"

Father Mulcahy noticed that many of the other patients in post-op had been woken by Hawkeye, except for those few who were no doubt in a medically induced sleep.

"Don't you worry about it, son. Try to get back to sleep."

"He's a doctor, isn't he?" the patient continued. "He was at Battalion Aid. I remember – he treated my shoulder before I was bused over here."

"That's right, son."

"What happened to him? Is he gonna be alright?"

Colonel Potter clapped the soldier on the shoulder. "He's in the hands of one of our most capable surgeons. Don't you worry about it," the colonel reiterated. Mollified, the soldier nodded.

"Father," said Colonel Potter. Father Mulcahy snapped to attention. His thoughts were still wildly scattered, sluggish, and confused. He could feel his heart thumping in his stomach. He felt nauseated. "Why don't you head to the OR? I guess you could do just as much good praying there as here, maybe a little more."

"Yes…yes, of course, Colonel." Father Mulcahy stumbled across the floor.

He heard the door at the other end of the ward swing open and the voice of Lieutenant Kellye as she asked Colonel Potter what had happened. "I heard something about Hawkeye…?"

She must have been summoned by someone, probably Radar. The boy seemed capable of completing a manifold of tasks, almost as if he was able to be in more than one place at one time. Father Mulcahy couldn't imagine what the unit would do without him. Or, indeed, what the unit would do without any of them….

Father Mulcahy paused to collect himself outside the door to the operating room. The scrub room was empty, everyone already bustling inside. He could hear Charles' and BJ's voices drifting muffled through the space below the door.

The door behind Father Mulcahy clattered open and in stumbled Klinger, wide-eyed, pale, and fingers trembling. "I just heard – is he –?"

"I don't know," said Father Mulcahy, throat tight. Really, the only thing to do would open the door to find out. But Father Mulcahy felt a curious misgiving about walking into the operating room, of seeing Hawkeye once again on the table, once again with is chest split open, once again, perhaps, on the brink of breathing his last breath –

_– __And to call upon the name of the Lord._

Father Mulcahy snatched up a cloth mask and pushed open the door abruptly, spilling into the brightly lit, gaping room. Charles was standing at his usual table, at the end of the room, somehow seeming very small and faraway. The small group of people gathered around the operating table seemed to take up very little room, their voices and the clattering of instruments seemed unusually loud against the otherwise empty and echoing room.

He tied the mask around his neck with fumbling fingers and marched briskly forward.

"He's hemorrhaging," said BJ, voice raspy, working the anesthesia machine, holding the black mask against Hawkeye's still face.

"We've got to lower his blood pressure," said Charles. "He's losing blood too fast."

"Right, beta blocker," said Margaret, standing across the table from him, face pale but set, looking almost like a waxwork.

"Suction, Major. There it is."

"Thank God, the aorta's not ruptured," said Margaret.

"No, just an aortic dissection," muttered Charles.

"He's going into shock, Charles," said BJ tightly.

"Suction, Major! I need two more units of whole blood, now!"

Klinger stumbled forward, "I've got them, sir!"

"Klinger, what are you doing here?" demanded Margaret.

Klinger returned with the units of blood and hooked them to the IV stand, Margaret helping with one bloodied hand, the other holding steady a suction tube that reached into Hawkeye's open chest.

"Listen, I know all I'm gonna be able to do is maybe mop up blood on the floor and towel off your foreheads but it's a whole lot better than just standing around waiting to see what happens!" said Klinger.

"I don't need an audience," said Charles through gritted teeth, but appeared much too absorbed in the task at hand to protest anymore. "Sponge, Major. Hunnicut, what's he reading?"

"Eighty-five over fifty-five, Charles."

Charles swore under his breath. "Pulse?"

"Forty. It's weak – but – but it's still there," whispered BJ.

"I've got to oversew the aneurism," hissed Charles, almost as if he was speaking to himself.

Father Mulcahy became aware that he'd clenched his hands into fists. He tried to ease the tension from his shoulders. Hawkeye's pale face kept him enraptured. He'd never been bothered very much by the blood and gore of operations – goodness knows he'd seen his share over the past two years – but now he found himself curiously incapable of staring at the torn flesh of Hawkeye's chest, of the pooling blood and palpitating exposed muscles. Nausea rolled in his stomach. His hands moved unconsciously to the crucifix dangling from his neck.

The air in the operating room was stagnant and tense. Father Mulcahy focused on breathing deeply in and out, feeling the stretch of his shirt against his abdomen, whispering in his mind whatever plea he could think of.

_Give him strength, Lord. Grant him Your mercy. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven._

Klinger stood tensely beside him. Shoulder's taught like a spring, ready to jump forward at a moment's notice if his assistance should be called for. A bead of sweat slithered down Father Mulcahy's forehead, running behind his ear, down his neck.

The operation seemed to progress at an abnormally slow time. It seemed like Charles' every movement was slow, weighted, painstakingly precise. There was only the sound of clattering instruments, Charles' murmured voice, the muffled, almost silent ebb and flow of Hawkeye's breathing.

"Alright, now to take care of the lung," said Charles. "How is he?"

"Still with us," said BJ weakly.

The mud covering the front of Father Mulchay's uniform had dried to a crusty light brown. He had forgotten about that. He realized his glasses were still speckled with now-dried mud. Absentmindedly, he reached up to take them off and wipe them on a corner of his shirt.

The seconds ticked by and Father Mulcahy was reminded of that sickening pause on the first day, when Hawkeye's heart had stopped and those in the operating room had all paused, forgotten to breathe and to think, waiting for that word from the nurse, waiting for some kind of response, waiting, praying, hoping –

"Alright," Charles took a breath. "I've done everything it is I could possibly do. It's up to Hawkeye now."

Father Mulcahy realized distantly that it was one of the few times he had ever heard the Major address Hawkeye by his favored nickname.

BJ stood from his seat by Hawkeye's head. Margaret tugged off her bloodied gloves.

"Klinger," said BJ, "help me get him back out to post-op."

_May we ever remember that recovery is only a reprieve and that someday we will go to our rest in the Lord. May we therefore secure the righteous path and live with eternity ever in our view._

Father Mulcahy realized the operating room had dissolved into a blur. He tugged the mask away from his chin with trembling fingers. His chest ached. He faltered forward, walking through the door into pre-op, stepping toward the door that led to the compound. He only had the vague awareness that he hadn't a clue where it was he was going.

Father Mulcahy stepped outside distractedly, and only after taking several steps across the muddy compound did he realize that it had stopped raining. He came to a slightly unsteady stop, and saw that the clouds had begun to break near the horizon, bleeding red rays of the rising sun across the gray expanse of sky. His throat burned and eyes stung and he realized he was still clutching his crucifix in his hand, edges of the small cross biting painfully into his palm. He took a slow, trembling breath of the cool moist air and he wearily bowed his head in a brief, stammering prayer of thanks.

* * *

Author's Note: I hadn't planned on having this whole chapter from Father Mulcahy's point of view but after I started writing I just kept visualizing the scenes from his eyes. Tell me how you think I did.

Anyway, if all goes as planned, two more chapters and then it will be finished…one way or the other. ;)


	5. rolling clouds

Author's Note: Sorry it took me so long to get this out. The generic excuse, of course, is Life.

On another note, I find it so amusing that the first spell-check option for Houlihan is "hooligan".

And thank you very much for all your feedback so far!

* * *

Chapter Four – Rolling Clouds:

Colonel Potter folded his glasses on top of his desk and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He was tired, bone tired. He sighed, chest rising and falling slowly. It had been without a doubt one of the most emotionally taxing thirty-six hours of his life.

"Colonel Potter, sir?"

"Come in, Radar." The door was already swinging shut behind the boy, eyes hidden behind his smudged glasses, cap slightly askew atop his head. "It's Daniel Pierce, sir –"

"Jumpin' jompers, if I didn't forget all about that. I'd better send the man a telegraph, if that didn't beat all the insensitive ways of telling a man his son's fighting for his life in post-op –"

"I've got him on the phone now, sir," Radar interrupted. "I mean – I only thought that maybe – since you've been so busy I thought I'd –"

Colonel Potter smiled to put Radar at his ease, "Not at all, son. It's good to know at least someone around here is still thinking straight. I'll take it in here…. And Radar?"

"Yes, Colonel?"

"It's a mighty fine thing to think of."

"Thank you, sir."

Colonel Potter breathed deeply before picking up the receiver inside its canvass bag, trying to compose himself. He'd had many a conversation like the one he was preparing himself for, too many, but it never seemed to get any easier. Especially when it concerned a doctor and man as fine as Pierce…and his father who could only be as fine as his son. Colonel Potter couldn't recall that he'd ever had the pleasure of talking to Daniel Pierce before. It was a shame that the first time had to be over something like this.

Colonel Potter took another deep breath before placing the receiver up to his ear. "Dr. Pierce? Colonel Sherman Potter, here."

"My God, Colonel. Your company clerk just rung me. What's wrong? Is Hawkeye alright?"

Colonel Potter sighed. The man certainly had a way of cutting straight to the chase.

"I know this might come as something as a shock –"

"Colonel, don't bother with any mollycoddling. Tell me. Is Hawkeye alright?"

Colonel Potter cleared his throat. "That hard truth of the matter, Doctor, is that your son came in here the other night with a very serious chest wound, partially torn aorta, pulmonary laceration –"

"Oh God," whispered Daniel Pierce.

Colonel Potter felt his stomach twisting. He could only imagine what it might be like to have an unfamiliar man call him out of the blue to tell him that it was his own son who'd been injured, who was fighting for his life – heck, he hardly had to imagine it. From the beginning Hawkeye had always been more than just one of his Colonel Potter's subordinates.

"What happened? How's he doing?" The fear was evident in Daniel Pierce's voice, the unasked questions painfully clear in the pauses between the syllables: _is my son alive? Is he going to stay alive?_

"The Aid station your son was at was hit by an attack. It was a mortar. Caught Hawkeye in the chest just as he was trying to get out."

"Colonel, is he alright?" said Daniel Pierce fiercely, low, insistent.

"He…one of our surgeons just had to open him up again. He was going into heart failure. His lung had collapsed."

"Oh God," Daniel Pierce whispered. His voice was rough. Colonel Potter wondered if the man had succumbed to tears.

Colonel Potter pressed on. "That was all about an hour ago. He's unconscious in post-op now. His blood pressure's seventy-seven over forty. His temperature's reading 104.5. Heart-rate's up."

Daniel Pierce breathed heavily. "Infection?"

"He's on period doses of penicillin. Got a chest tube in. Seems to be draining well."

They spoke for several more moments. Daniel Pierce, a doctor himself, asking all the hard questions and Colonel Potter having to answer him.

"They'll be cutting us off any second now," said Colonel Potter. "I'm sorry the news couldn't have been any better."

Daniel Pierce sighed, weariness evident even through the crackling of the phone lines, "I know it isn't your fault, Colonel. A doctor can – there's only so much you can do."

"Your son's about the finest man I've ever had the privilege of serving with, and all of us here feel the same."

"Thank you, Colonel."

"Call me Sherman."

"Call me Dan."

"Alright, Dan. I'll call you as soon as…" Colonel Potter didn't know what to say. As soon as what? As soon as Hawkeye's fever broke? As soon as it didn't? "I'll call you as soon as there's any change."

"Thank you, Sherman."

* * *

Lieutenant Kealani Kellye rubbed the sleep from her eyes and shuffled through the doors of post-op, bumping into a waist-high little figure coming her way as she walked through the door.

"Oops, I'm sorry little one," she said, smiling at the little Korean boy, whose name they had learned to be Jong-soo. He had his little sister, Sook-ja, by the hand.

"Me excuse you," said the little boy, showing a toothy grin. His sister blinked silently up at Kellye with large dark eyes. The cut on her cheek had scabbed over and a light brown colored bruise formed on her forehead, but all other evidence of the accident in the hut had disappeared. They'd obviously just been visiting their mother, who was sitting up in bed half-way down the ward and already impatient to get away from the hospital.

"I fine," she had insisted in broken English to Colonel Potter the previous afternoon. "I go home now."

"There's not much of it left I'm afraid," Colonel Potter had sighed. "Anyway, you're on bed rest for another day until I'm sure your noggin's ay-okay."

"We leave soon?" The little boy asked Kellye.

"Yes, later today you'll be free to go," Kellye answered. "We'll certainly miss you around here, Jong-soo," she ruffled the boy's blue-black hair. "You two, sweetheart," she said his sister, who merely blinked again. She had proved herself to be a timid child during her brief stay at the camp.

With their mother laid up in post-op and the higher ranking officers preoccupied with Hawkeye's condition the care of the children had been dispersed among the nurses and some of the enlisted men. Kelly and Klinger, especially, had taken it upon themselves to watch out for the children.

Kellye looked up when she heard a disturbance coming near the end of the room. She saw Captain Hunnicutt standing with Majors Houlihan and Winchester. From the agitated way Captain Hunnicutt was moving his arms and the frown on Major Houlihan's lips, Kellye could tell they were arguing. She couldn't distinguish individual words in their muffled voices from where she stood but she didn't have to be a genius to figure out what they were talking about.

Hawkeye had been drifting between unconsciousness and delirium for the last day now. He had a raging fever, low blood pressure, and the onset of pneumonia. She didn't blame BJ, as Hawkeye's best friend, for being a little emotional.

Just then BJ threw up his hands, turned on his heel, and stormed out the opposite door, Major Houlihan and Major Winchester staring after him. Kellye sighed.

"Everyone worried?" said Jong-soo, turning her attention back to him and his sister. "Doctor is hurt?"

Kellye smiled weakly and ruffled Jong-soo's hair again. "That's right, honey. Everyone's worried." She hadn't realized their preoccupation over Hawkeye had been so apparent that a child might pick up on it. But, then again, Hawkeye was greatly loved among all the personnel, it was only natural that the stress over his very slow recovery should begin to show through the cracks in their false smiles and shadows beneath their eyes.

"How about you go find Klinger, alright?" Kellye said to the two children. "Ask him to get you something to eat from the mess tent."

Jong-soo nodded and dragged his sister after him as he existed the ward.

Kellye walked toward Majors Houlihan and Winchester, now speaking together in low voices after BJ's abrupt departure.

"I'm here to relieve you, Major," said Kellye.

Major Houlihan looked up and mustered a tired looking smile, "Thank you, Lieutenant. I've just got a few things to finish up here first." Major Winchester nodded to Major Houlihan before drifting off to check a clipboard hanging on the bedpost of one of the other patients. Kellye had noticed the usually snide and presumptuous Major Winchester had been rather subdued of late. She supposed Hawkeye had somehow managed to burrow himself even in the Major's prickly heart more than anyone – indeed, more than Major Winchester, himself – could ever have guessed.

"Of course, Major."

"See to it Corporal Spencer's dressings are changed, Lieutenant. And Private Johnston's due for another shot of morphine."

"Yes, Major." Kellye could tell Major Houlihan was about to prattle out several more instructions so she intercut hastily. "Why don't you try to get some rest, Major? You've been up half the night. I'll take care of everything here."

"Yes, of course, I – I'll just take care of –" Major Houlihan wavered. She checked herself and added gruffly, "I'll leave when I'm quite ready, thank you, Lieutenant."

Kellye only smiled. "Of course, Major." She left to see to Corporal Spencer. Out of the corner of her eye, Kellye watched as Major Houlihan glided over to Hawkeye's bedside. After hesitating for a moment, Major Houlihan sat down in the chair beside his cot, fixing her eyes purely on his still and waxen face.

After tending to the wounded on her list, Kellye saw that Major Houlihan had yet to leave Hawkeye's side. Feeling that terrible twisting in her stomach that Kellye experienced every time she saw someone suffering, and indeed, the feeling that had prompted her to become a nurse in the first place, Kellye wandered over to stand beside Major Houlihan, who had Hawkeye's limp hand in her own.

"No change at all, Major?" Kellye asked softly.

Major Houlihan started, even though Kellye had not specifically tried to be silent in her approach. Major Houlihan looked up and hastily released Hawkeye's hand. Kellye tried to smile at her in a way to somehow let her know that it was alright to show compassion, alright to show concern, to be worried, to be weak. Kellye could hardly blame her, after all.

"No," murmured Major Houlihan. "No change. His blood pressure is so low. If we can't –" Her voice tripped and she didn't continue.

Kellye felt heavy dread settle in her stomach. She didn't need any explanations. She already knew.

"Is there anything else I can do, Major?" said Kellye.

Major Houlihan turned her eyes back on Hawkeye. "No, I can't think of anything, Lieutenant. Thank you, I'll – I'll just sit here for a moment."

"Of course, Major," Kellye barely felt like smiling but she did so anyway, wandering over to the desk at the end of the room. It was all very silent. None of the other patients were stirring. Major Winchester was reading a book in the corner, otherwise lost to the world. Kellye envied him his ability of losing himself in a place separate from their own, to depart if only briefly from the troubles near at hand.

Kellye checked over some paperwork, got up to adjust a patient's IV, took down a letter to Sergeant Lederman's wife because he had his right arm in a sling, and handed out oatmeal to the soldiers who could stomach solid food. Major Winchester was relieved by Colonel Potter, who went to sit with a young private who was in a lot of pain and couldn't have another shot of morphine yet. Kellye settled down behind the desk and noticed that Major Houlihan was still sitting at Hawkeye's side.

Kellye watched Major Houlihan carefully. The gray light spilling through the window threaded her bent head with gold. She was watching Hawkeye with a tenderness that Kellye had only ever seen her show to the wounded. Long ago Kellye had realized that Major Houlihan's tough as nails army veneer was really nothing more than just that, a façade – perhaps more for her own benefit than anyone else's.

As Kellye watched, Major Houlihan gave Hawkeye's hand a squeeze. Her lips barely moved as she murmured, "We all miss you around here, Hawk. The place is hardly recognizable. It's so…silent."

Kellye averted her eyes. She knew Major Houlihan's show of affection was a rare and personal thing, and wouldn't have liked it if she'd known Kellye had been eavesdropping. But her voice carried clearly across the silent ward and Kellye found it difficult to keep her mind on her work.

"BJ's really worried about you. So is Radar, and Colonel Potter, and Klinger. Even Charles, although he tries not to show it. And me. I'm worried about you, Hawkeye. I don't know what I'd do if…." Major Houlihan paused to take a deep breath.

"You've been more of a friend to me than many people have, Hawkeye. I know I haven't been the easiest person to get along with and…and the way you just disregarded that, and kept trying to be friendly in that annoying persistent way of yours –" a strangled, watery laugh, "I just want to let you know that it…that means a lot to me. _You_ mean a lot to me."

Colonel Potter, talking to the private about his hometown, served as a gentle, rumbling backdrop to Major Houlihan's hushed voice.

"I don't think I could manage…I don't think this camp…any of us, Hawkeye," Major Houlihan seemed to be having difficulty in finding the words. "This place just wouldn't be the same without you. I know Korea hasn't exactly been a barrel of laughs, hardly a place of sunshine, and smiles, and happiness, but you should know that what you…what you did was a miracle, Hawkeye. You brought joy to the middle of the war, you brought smiles to the lips of the hurting and the dying, and with you gone…with you….

"You just can't die, Pierce." Suddenly her voice rose, trembling slightly but as brusque and gruff as Kellye was used to. "It just wouldn't be fair. Think of your father, of BJ, of all the wounded soldiers who you helped bring back to life…you just – you can't let them down, Pierce. You can't let me down. And Charles, Charles, who's done everything he can to pull you out of this. He'd never forgive you if you let yourself die now. You've got to live, Hawkeye. And that's an order of no uncertain terms."

Major Houlihan's voice wavered. She untangled her fingers from Hawkeye's hand and brushed hastily at her eyes before standing from her chair and marching out of the room. Kellye turned back to her paperwork and was startled to realize her own cheeks were damp with tears.

* * *

BJ ran his finger around the rim of his glass. He stared at the clear, rippling liquid and the olive at the bottom and couldn't bring himself to take a sip. He seemed to have lost his penchant for alcohol overnight. He sighed heavily and put his glass down on the table with a snap.

The officer's club was practically empty. A few corpsmen were sitting in a corner drinking beer and playing poker. Igor stood behind the bar, staring vacantly at the opposite wall and wiping the inside of a glass with a rag.

Sunlight filtered weakly through the windows. For once it wasn't raining, but Radar had gotten wind of another storm system scheduled to move in in just another couple of hours. BJ shut his eyes, lump caught in his throat. He reminded himself that it wasn't as though Hawkeye was no longer strong enough to be transported anywhere, anyway, now that an ambulance could actually get through.

It was now four days since he had come in from Battalion Aid, a little more than a day after Charles had had to open him back up again to stop him from internally bleeding to death, from suffocating, to make his heart start pumping again because he refused to let Hawkeye die. It was unimaginable that Hawkeye should die.

BJ raised the glass back to his lips and gulped. The alcohol burned going down his throat, but not as much as he was used to. The martinis at the o-club could never hold a candle to the ones from the still. Then again, one probably shouldn't be holding a candle to anything from the still, as much like lighter fluid as it was.

BJ sighed again. It seemed lack of sleep was making him punchy.

Anyway, the still had run dry. BJ just hadn't had the heart to keep it running when Hawkeye hadn't been there to share a grin over a couple of glasses of gin. _Hey, that rhymes_, thought BJ vaguely, and swallowed another mouthful of his drink.

The door opened and Charles shuffled in. BJ watched the major over the rim of his glass; Charles peered into the corners of the bar before stopping at the counter to order. Igor got him his drink and Charles reached into his pocket.

"On the house, Major," said Igor softly, the same thing he had told BJ several minutes before.

"Oh, well," it was clear that Charles wasn't entirely sure what to say. "Thank you, Private," he said brusquely.

Grabbing hold of his snifter of amber liquid, Charles once again looked around the bar. His eyes fixed themselves on BJ's table and he walked over. "Hunnicutt," he said by way of greeting, even though they had just left each other over Hawkeye's bed in post-op forty-five minutes ago.

_"__We'll have to make sure to keep his blood pressure down."_

_"__I don't think that's a problem right now, Charles. Getting it back up is the problem!"_

_"__Hunnicutt, please. Hysterics is the last thing we need."_

_"__Charles is right, BJ. Why don't you go get yourself a drink?" _

"Charles," said BJ heavily.

The older man pulled out a chair and sat down, setting his cognac on the table. "At least we've seen the end of this infernal rain," he said, as if continuing a conversation they'd already begun.

"Radar says it won't last."

"And what Radar says is surely law," said Charles. He frowned and took a sip of his drink.

"With a name like Radar, he would know," said BJ, he, too, taking another gulp of gin and realized his glass was almost empty.

"I'll buy you another," Charles offered.

"Apparently they're on the house," said BJ.

"Exactly my point," said Charles.

BJ was so surprised he almost smiled. It wasn't every day that Charles made a joke that wasn't a transparent effort to insult someone. BJ stifled a yawn with the back of his fist. He shook his hair away from his eyes.

"What time is it, anyway?"

"A little after oh-nine-hundred, as the army is fond of calling it."

"I suppose it's a little early for this," said BJ, indicating his glass of gin.

"You're point?" said Charles, raising his eyebrows and taking another drink of his cognac.

"I think I'll donate my body to science," BJ mused, tracing the brim of his glass again, feeling the beads of liquid left there. "I'll preserve it in alcohol until they can use it." But that reminded him too much of what Hawkeye would say if Hawkeye was there, but of course Hawkeye wasn't there, because Hawkeye was unconscious in post-op. BJ swore and dug his fingers into his eyes.

"We've done everything we can for him at the moment, Hunnicutt," said Charles, speaking low but with an oddly restrained sound to his voice. Obviously the man wasn't accustomed to offering sympathy.

"It doesn't feel like nearly enough," said BJ, eyes still shut.

"I understand, given your relationship," Charles said hesitantly, "how…distressing it must be for you –"

"Damn it, Charles!" BJ's eyes snapped back open. "Hawkeye has become everything to me. It's far beyond _distressing_ to be sitting here now, sipping gin with him lying in post-op with – with –" BJ became aware of how loud his voice had gotten. Abruptly he stopped, words choking him in his throat.

Like the gentleman Charles always claimed to be, he didn't say anything following BJs outburst. BJ almost wished he would. It would have been a relief to argue, to fight, to tear into something in order to release some of this terrible pent-up pressure inside of his head and chest that had settled into a hard, throbbing lump since the very minute BJ had stepped onto that bus to see his best friend lying there with blood soaking through the front of his uniform.

Having to sit there now, unable to do anything, having had to stand there behind the operating table, watching as Charles cut through Hawkeye's flesh, having to sit there helplessly keeping vigil at his bedside had been unbearable. BJ breathed deeply and gulped down the rest of the gin, almost choking on the olive, which he had forgotten about.

Outside, somewhere in the distance but still sounding much too close, there was a rumble of explosions and artillery.

"At it again," said Charles. "I'm afraid the good weather has some adverse effects."

"It's not as though the rain stopped them before," said BJ.

"I can't imagine why anyone should want to fight in the middle of a hurricane," Charles huffed. "Rainy weather was created by God for man to take a good book before a crackling fire and a steaming cup of chamomile."

"I don't expect the boys doing the actual fighting had much say in the matter," said BJ, absentmindedly poking at the olive in the bottom of his glass with a toothpick. "Someone with a lot of brass on their shoulders, probably sitting in front of the fire with that cup of chamomile, turned a page of their book and said "Go"."

Overhead could be heard the wining drone of an airplane engine. A moment later there was a distant whistle of a falling bomb followed by a muffled explosion. BJ's empty martini glass vibrated on the table as the ground trembled. A bit of dust fell out of the rafters.

"Was that close?" said Charles, evidently meaning, _should we be concerned?_

"Not too close, yet," BJ answered dully. "I guess it's perfect weather for flying."

There was another distant rumble. BJ wondered, if he listened hard enough, if he might distinguish the faraway gunshots and screams of wounded men. He wondered if – He pushed his glass aside, bracing his elbows on the table and pressing his forehead against his palms.

"Hunnicutt…" said Charles, the discomfort evident in his voice.

"I wanted to thank you, Charles," said BJ suddenly, voice coming up his throat, hitting his ears harshly. "I – I know you did everything you could. I know that, whatever happens now…."

"Listen, Hunnicutt," said Charles hesitantly. "– BJ – I know I am hardly the person that comes to mind when one thinks of sanguinity – frankly, that is Father Mulcahy's business – but, really, there is no need to…to…"

"Thank you anyway, Charles," BJ cut him off. _Thank you anyway, just in case…if things don't turn out right…just in case if, afterward, I forget to thank you, I forget that it wasn't your fault, wasn't anyone's fault and am looking for someone to blame –_

Charles cleared his throat. He took a sip of his cognac and coughed again before answering. "Yes, well, you're welcome, Hunnicutt – BJ – I…certainly tried my best."

_I know_. But somehow the words refused to rise to BJ's lips. He felt exhausted. He stared at the rough wooden grain of the table below him, tracing its every line and scratches in the surface, swirling patterns of wood.

The door to the officer's club swung open and BJ's eyes pulled upward. Klinger stepped inside, skirt swirling and boots clunking on the wooden floor. "Major, Captain –" Something in the Corporal's voice, tight and insistent, and in his pale face immediately made BJ's stomach contract violently.

"What is it? Is it Hawkeye?" BJ realized he had already stood from his chair, nerves raw and battle-torn.

"No, Captain. It's the –" Klinger swallowed, eyes large, obviously shaken, "it's the little Korean girl, the one we got from the hut. She – I was getting her some food from in the mess tent but she collapsed. I think maybe she fainted, or something. She won't – I can't wake her up, sir."

* * *

Jong-soo had his sister's still face in his lap, sitting on the dusty floor of the mess tent. His jaw was set in the kind of forced, quivering line that suggested he was trying not to cry. Nurse Baker was kneeling next to him, hand gently on his shoulder. It occurred to BJ that maybe Jong-soo didn't want to relinquish his hold on his sister.

"Hey, kid," BJ said softly, Charles shuffling into the tent behind him. "Hey, will you let me get a look at your sister? Please? I'd like to see what's wrong with her so I can help her. Is that okay?"

Jong-soo didn't appear to comprehend what BJ was saying, but BJ knew the kid could speak pretty good English.

BJ worked his fingers gently through Jong-soo's tangled arms so he could get to the little girl's thin neck. He found a pulse almost immediately. Sook-ja's face was peaceful and pale. Her chest rose and fell evenly.

BJ calmly nudged Jong-soo's arm away so he could get a better look at Sook-ja's head, covered if brownish-black hair, soft like the down of a duck. "Did she hit her head again?"

"Her brother caught her."

"What do you think, Charles?"

"Subdural haematoma?" said Charles.

"It can't be acute, we wouldn't have missed that," said BJ. They shouldn't have missed anything. They shouldn't have let this happen. But the wounded and the rain and then Hawkeye…and BJ shouldn't have missed this.

"Subacute then?" said Charles.

BJ gently prodded Sook-ja's head with his fingers. "Otherwise she seems to be alright."

"Burr hole trephination?" said Charles.

"Let's get her into pre-op."

* * *

Kellye was by Hawkeye's side at the merest whisper of sound. His hand was caught in hers and fingers searching his wrist for a pulse even before her feet had remembered to come to a halt. His pulse was thready and rapid. His eyelids flickered. His lips were open, breathing wispy and hoarse.

"No…wait…can't…leave…not yet…." His voice was faint, barely audible over the shuddering of the panes in the windows from the wind that had been kicked up suddenly by another approaching storm.

"What is it?" Colonel Potter appeared behind Kellye's shoulder, voice taught, eyes fixated on Hawkeye whom stirred fitfully on the cot.

"He's delirious," Kellye answered.

"Temperature?"

"104.6," Kellye answered, the colonel cutting her off with a curse before she'd finished.

"No…Private…get to…Beej? Beej, get to…."

"Easy, son." Colonel Potter gently touched Hawkeye's forehead with his hand, his fingers coming away damp with perspiration.

Kellye saw a bead of sweat, looking almost like a tear, slide down the side of Hawkeye's face.

* * *

It was unspoken between he and Charles that BJ would be the one to take care of the Sook-ja. Charles offered to assist, even though it was a common procedure, bordering on artless, exactly the type of procedure that Charles usually avoided like the plague.

BJ pulled on his scrubs over his fatigues. He tied a mask around his mouth and snapped on a pair of rubber gloves.

"Set up the twist drill," he said to Nurse Baker, who had followed him and Charles into the operating room.

Once again he felt himself fold into the blissful automation of surgery. Thoughts of Hawkeye lying in post-op, of the look on Jong-soo's face when they'd gently pulled his sister away from his arms, of the rumbles of artillery in the distance all disappeared to a dark corner in BJ's mind. All that mattered was the tiny square-inch of skin exposed through the little girl's soft hair and the handle of scalpel biting into BJ's palm.

It was a short procedure, a simple procedure and BJ's fingers moved fluidly. The little girl would live. Of course she would. Perhaps she wouldn't have if the head trauma had been more severe, if they had not caught it when they did, there were so many mitigating factors but, of course – of course she would live.

BJ wondered why his heart was throbbing in his throat. He wondered why his eyes continuously strayed to the little girl's closed, quiet eyes, her soft lips puckered in that youthful way, looking so young, so beautiful, so innocent. If not for the dark hair and almond shaped eyes she might have been anyone's daughter, anyone's precious little girl, might have had blond curls and blue eyes and been named Erin –

"Hunnicutt?"

"I'm fine, Charles. I'm fine."

"If you need assistance, please, do not hesitate to ask –"

_Shut up, Charles, you – you –_

"I'm fine, Charles. Sponge, Baker."

The little girl's mouth was covered with the anesthesia mask. BJ's pulse throbbed in his wrists and his fingers trembled oh-so-slightly as he inserted the tube into the hole he had drilled into the little girl's skull to alleviate the pressure of the leaking blood collecting against her brain and somehow he had never felt any disgust before toward this particular procedure, systematic as it was, but now he felt curiously nauseated.

War was certainly more terrible than hell because there were no innocent bystanders in hell, and especially no children. All children went to heaven. All innocents went to heaven, BJ was sure of it, although he couldn't for the life of him figure out why he thought of it now.

And it had been Hawkeye who had said that – said that about hell and war and innocent bystanders – and Hawkeye was now in post-op, on the fencepost of life and death, only an innocent bystander himself. And somehow the little girl and Hawkeye had grown curiously connected, had become almost the same person in BJ's eyes and surely their fates were connected and if the little girl lived than Hawkeye would surely live, too, but if the little girl died than Hawkeye would –

But, of course, the little girl wouldn't die. The little girl couldn't die.

And her life was in BJ's hands and that meant Hawkeye's life was in BJ's hands and – and BJ's thoughts were scattered and vague and rambling. The stern, routed-in-reality part of his brain that still worked and fought for control told him to step away from the little girl, put down the scalpel because he was surely in no condition to operate and he couldn't let this little girl die because of some mistake of his own.

Something was stopping the air from coming up BJ's throat but he numbly felt his tongue move, forming the words that asked Charles to please close for him. He pulled off his bloodied gloves automatically, because all of surgery was automatic. Life itself was automatic and not considered a miracle until it was lost.

BJ stumbled out into the compound and felt a light, cool drizzle hit his face. The camp was shrouded with a softly falling mist, the sun once again hidden by heavy, gray clouds. He breathed deeply and slowly, trying to settling his squirming stomach, trying to forget the feel of the little girl's hot blood on his fingers, the look of her small, peaceful face on the table, eyes shut, small, pink mouth partly open, so indescribably precious, innocent, young….

"BJ?"

Almost unconsciously BJ felt his heartbeat begin to accelerate. His palms grew damp with sweat. Margaret tripped out of the mist, eyes ringed with red, hair mussed, lips trembling.

"BJ?"

"Margaret, what…?" BJ's words died on his lips as his throat closed in on itself, refusing to allow any air up to his brain.

Margaret's gleaming eyes searched his face, body tense, lips working soundlessly. "BJ it's –" Her voice moved sluggishly through BJ's brain, hardly recognizes the sound coming from her mouth as words.

"BJ, it's Hawkeye…."


	6. Skies Clear

Author's Note: *Peaks head around corner* Oh…hello, I – er – really didn't mean to take so long to post this. Meanwhile, however, I think y'all should know that I had a sadistically grand time torturing you. *Dodges thrown chair*

* * *

Chapter Five – Skies Clear:

"…It's Hawkeye."

BJ felt his stomach clench, heard a small voice in his head begin to scream. His whole body tensed, about to clap his hand over Margaret's mouth, cover his ears, shout so he couldn't hear, he didn't want to hear –

Margaret's eyes pooled with water. Her lips pulled into a tremulous smile. "His fever's broken. Blood pressure's back up to one-ten over seventy." Tears cascaded down Margaret's flushed cheeks. She hardly seemed to notice, gasping through her clogged throat, "He – breathing easier. Pulse, sixty and – getting stronger –"

Suddenly Margaret was in BJ's arms, face pressed into his shoulder, tears soaking through his uniform, shoulder's shaking. His arms contracted around her automatically. He was hardly able to breathe.

He wanted to spring into the air, to leap for joy, to shout unto the heavens but strangely his arms and legs, the muscles in his throat, seemed to have lost all strength. He couldn't make his voice rise to his lips, couldn't leap, couldn't whoop. He couldn't – he couldn't –

"Oh, BJ –" Margaret said jerkily, sobbing now in full. "I think – I think he's going to be alright!"

The words rebounded with strange meaninglessness in his head. He reacted only to the emotion pouring out of Margaret, feeling his lips pull painfully upward, feeling hot tears of his own dribble down his cheeks.

_Alright. Alright. I think he's going to be alright. _

Without thinking, without feeling, without making any decisions both he and Margaret sunk down to their knees in the soft earth, still wet from the days of torrential rain. He was vaguely aware in the back of his mind that he was now sobbing, face buried into Margaret's hair, but all he could think was those glorious, trembling, miraculous words: _he's alright. Alright. I think he's going to be alright. _

The cold mist trickled down the color of his shirt and there was a tremendous crack of thunder as, once again, the clouds let loose a deluge of rain.

* * *

Colonel Potter had just hung up the phone when he heard a babble of voices erupt in Radar's office. Knowing full well what it was all about he shoved himself out of his chair and through the doors.

Inside the office were all the people he'd expected to see, Radar, Father Mulcahy, Major Winchester, Major Houlihan, and Captain Hunnicutt – the last two who were soaked to the skin, obviously having got caught in the renewed downpour outside.

All of them seemed to be speaking at once. BJ was smiling beneath blood-shot eyes, "Is he awake? Can I go see him? What's his temperature now?"

"As overjoyed I am to hear of Pierce's recovery," Major Winchester drawled, "I do wish you'd come to me with the news first, Major, designated physician as I am –"

"Praise be to the Lord –"

"Couldn't have put it better myself, Father."

"Jeez, I don't know about all of you guys but I was sure getting scared –"

Colonel Potter raised his palms to shoulder height, "Hold your horses now, everyone. I knew this news was going to cause a bit of excitement but we don't need a stampede."

"Colonel, is he awake? I'm going to go see him –"

"Hold it, Hunnicutt!" said Colonel Potter, trying to keep his voice gruff while at the same time trying to stifle the sense of indescribable relief he, too, felt. "First order of business, how's that little Korean girl you and Winchester had to get into the OR?"

"Recovering nicely, Colonel," said Charles hastily, voice clipped in a way that suggested he, also, was trying to repress his emotion toward Pierce's recovery.

"Alright then, now, I didn't want to spread any rumors around, that's why I called you all here –"

"Margaret said Hawkeye's fever has broken –"

"That's right, Captain, it has. But we're still far from out of the woods yet. He's still got that pneumonia to fight off with that bad lung –"

"The antibiotics seemed to have kicked in," Margaret cut in. Her eyes still gleamed with hastily shed tears of joy but she had set her face into that familiar strictly business-first expression, although her lips did quirk upward slightly at the corner as though she was telling herself firmly not to grin.

"They do indeed," said Colonel Potter, keeping his hand raised in a bid for silence even though it didn't seem to be doing much good. Everyone was just fit to the bursting with enthusiasm and relief and Colonel Potter could hardly blame them. Heck if Colonel Potter was perfectly honest with himself he'd like to abandon all caution to the wind and give over to that roaring sense of victory he, himself, felt bubbling to life in his stomach.

"But Hawkeye's still a far cry from being back to his usual self. Right now he's sleeping, and a good long, healing sleep can sometimes do wonders that medicine can't so I intend to let him take as long as he needs, that means no bedside visits –"

"Colonel –" said BJ, making a face.

Colonel Potter pointed his finger at the Captain's chest, "Especially you, Hunnicutt – you're stewing, fretting, and fussing is libel to worry anyone into a nervous breakdown and that's something Hawkeye just doesn't need right now."

Before BJ could object, Charles cut in snidely, "Surely you do not mean to bar me from my own patient, Colonel?"

"Medical interests, only, Winchester!"

"Why, of course, Colonel, what other possible interest could I have in Pierce besides medical?" said Charles with merely a passable imitation of his usual aloof self. Colonel Potter could tell along with everyone else in the room that Major Winchester was, perhaps, rivaled in his relief over Pierce's recovery only by BJ.

"Mind you all," Colonel Potter continued, "I just got off the phone with Dan Pierce, and I cautioned watchfulness instead of celebration. That's the same advice I'm going to give all of you. We'll keep our fingers crossed, keep a wary eye on Pierce's improvement, any changes will be reported to me so I can make the best possible decisions about his strength concerning any visitors, and – when the time comes – I'll see that arrangements are made so he can be moved to Seoul and, God willing, transported back home."

His words left a ringing silence in the office. Colonel Potter could tell that this was the first time the others had allowed themselves to think that someday in the future Pierce might be going home. It was inevitable with an injury as severe as Pierce's had been, but – truth was – it had been too touchy for a time that even thinking of returning Pierce home had seemed like false hope. Now, however, it was looking like a definite possibility, perhaps even a distasteful one.

Colonel Potter knew this kind of double-edged blade well, Pierce was a good man, and good surgeon, and – despite his protestations – a good soldier. Colonel Potter would be sorry to see him go. Then again, there was no denying the boy had been through enough to earn his way across that ocean twenty times by now. Colonel Potter couldn't deny Pierce a nice, safe, comfortable existence back in America with, when he fully recovered his strength, ordinary, everyday patients to look after, with ordinary, everyday ailments like sprained ankles and appendicitis.

"My point is," Colonel Potter finished, "that as optimistic as things might look now, I don't want to raise any false hope, so let's keep this between just us six for now."

Everyone nodded, Radar, the Padre, Majors Winchester and Houlihan, and BJ – and just then the door to the office rattled open, letting in a stream of cold wind and rain and baby blue gingham skirt.

"I just heard about Captain Pierce, Colonel!" Corporal Klinger was beaming beneath his large, hooked nose, eyes aglow with delight, "He's gonna be alright! It's spreading like wildfire all over the camp!"

* * *

Hawkeye woke to light, gentle chatter, and a pleasant, heavy, drowsiness that drifted through his head dizzyingly and made him want to fall asleep again. The world above him blurred and whirled, slurring into a combination of colors and indistinguishable shapes, like a mist shrouded dream. In fact, the whole thing had a surreal, otherworldly feel to it, like the void somewhere in between waking up after only a couple hours of sleep and a couple gallons of gin.

Just when he'd made up his mind to shut his eyes again and roll over on his cot to wait for BJ to shuffle through his own alcohol induced stupor to tell him right-face and snap off a salute to the new sparkling day, there above his bleary eyes loomed a face.

"Ah, Pierce, decided to grace us with your presence after all, have you?"

_Disgrace us with your presence, you mean_, Hawkeye had meant to say but somehow his tongue had turned to sandpaper and lips refused to form themselves around the words. It struck him suddenly that his head and limbs felt oddly heavy. In fact, upon further examination, he couldn't seem to move at all.

"Charles…" _what happened?_ His voice leaked unevenly through his lips, like a badly tuned radio.

"Nothing to worry about, Pierce," came Charles unmistakable clipped Boston accent, drifting torpidly somewhere above Hawkeye's face and sounding curiously disembodied, even though Hawkeye could see the major's lips move as he spoke. It took a moment for his words to drift through Hawkeye's ears and into his brain, longer still before he sorted through them well enough to discern any kind of meaning. "Although, with all honesty, you did give us all quite a scare. I don't suppose I should be surprised, however; it is just like you to travel all the way to the brink of death and back just to pull off a practical joke."

Practical jokes, now there was something Hawkeye understood but… "Brink of…" _death?_ "What are…" _you talking about?_

"Nothing to worry about, Pierce," Charles only said again, with a maddening patronizing tone to his voice as he patted Hawkeye's arm before grabbing his wrist to check for a pulse. All of this Hawkeye watched with a sort of detached interest, and then he realized that he could not, in fact, actually feel Charles' fingers on his arm.

"Charles…what?" He tried to pull his arm away from Charles. He saw his fingers twitch but couldn't feel it.

Charles pulled his hand away, eyes catching hold of Hawkeye's. His expression held more kindness than Hawkeye had ever seen on his face before, at least when addressing Hawkeye, terror of Uijeongbu and all that was civilized in the – the…. Hawkeye's head was fuzzy, his thoughts a confused, muddled mess.

"Easy, Pierce," said Charles. "Just relax, now. You're going to be alright."

"Charles I…I can't," Hawkeye tried to get his voice to come out of his lips stronger. It sounded weak and raspy in his ears, oddly disfigured. "Can't move…Charles."

"It's alright, Pierce. You're on a rather heavy dose of painkillers currently to help keep your blood pressure down to avoid any risk of re-dissection, and any lack of sensation you feel is inevitably due to that. Admittedly, for a few moments it was a bit touchy seeing as we were more concerned in getting your blood pressure back up – as Hunnicutt was very fond of reminding me – but we seem to have it in hand now. You should be able to be weaned off the morphine slowly over the course of the next few days, and surely when we're able to arrange your transport to Seoul…."

Charles was rambling, something Hawkeye had noticed he did when he was nervous. Hawkeye's mind was sluggishly trying to keep up. The world around him was blurry. His eyelids slipped shut, Charles' voice becoming a comforting drone in the back of his mind.

"Pierce? Wake up, Pierce. I know you're certainly very tired but be a good man and give me your attention for only a few moments longer."

Hawkeye's eyelids snapped back open. The world was losing its blurred-around-the-edges appearance now. Hawkeye recognized the rafters in the ceiling as belonging to post-op, and then he remembered waking up like this once before, with something sitting on his chest, and everyone gathered around his bed. By default he remembered the Aid Station, and remembered Private McKinnon's missing leg and the wet earth soaked with rain and Hawkeye's own blood beneath his fingers, and he remembered the dizzying, rattling bus ride in a patch-work of unconsciousness and blurry pain.

"Charles…what…happened?" Each word peeled away from his throat with effort and Hawkeye didn't need to know the answer now, but some specifics would have been nice.

Charles frowned, "You're lung collapsed again, which triggered a dissection of your aortic artery. It was…tricky…however, superior surgeon as I am, I managed, of course, to pull you through without too much trouble."

Hawkeye thought Charles' effort at pomposity was rather transparent and he smiled, lips feeling oddly stiff and weak. "Thank you…for that."

"It was my pleasure, Pierce."

To disperse the oddly somber mood that had suddenly descended, Hawkeye attempted to joke – it fell flat when he could barely get a word out without taking a breath – after all timing was everything: "Where…is…everyone? I'm…rather hurt at…their lack of…concern."

Charles' stiff upper lip actually managed to crick into half a smile, "Colonel Potter's orders, Pierce. You are to rest."

"You know I…don't give a…damn about orders, Charles."

"Even so, Pierce, visitors have been forthwith banned from any bedside cosseting until our commanding officer does so deem you fit – not that that has stopped our commanding officer, mind you, from disobeying his own orders."

Hawkeye smiled. "How's everyone been…holding up? BJ and…Radar…Margaret?"

"Perfectly fine now that you're speaking while conscious instead of from within the clutches of delirium."

The world was getting hazy again, and Hawkeye's thoughts more scattered as he fought sleep. "Charles, really…how bad was I? I'm…a big boy…can take it."

"I believe your lowest point was when you're blood pressure dipped to seventy-seven over forty. You're fever was reading almost 105, which is, of course, a high point."

Hawkeye tried to wrap his mind around it, tried to make himself realize that he had been so near death, so close to…to whatever it was there was left when there was no longer life and – and it was much too profound for his tired brain to think about and, besides, he didn't want to think about it.

"How long have I been unconscious?"

"Approximately two and half days. Six hours ago your fever broke and since then you have merely been sleeping."

Hawkeye fought to keep his eyes open. Charles' face blurred, "And…Charles?"

"Yes, Pierce?"

"Am I going to – I mean – I can take it…you'd let me know if…" He let the question hang. He didn't know how to finish it.

"You have my word, Pierce," said Charles, warm palm falling on Hawkeye's arm. "Other than the pneumonia, which the antibiotics seem to be making short work of, and as long as we can keep you stable, I see absolutely no cause for concern. After a few short days of rest here, you shall be moved to Seoul for a full recovery and all I shall say to that is that thank goodness I shall finally have you out of my hair."

Hawkeye smiled, and barely moving his lips, murmured before his eyelids completely shut, "What hair?"

Charles warm chuckle was the last thing he heard before slipping, once again, into blissful slumber.

* * *

"We're sure gonna miss you around here, Hawkeye." Radar was sitting on the chair by Hawkeye's bed, clipboard clutched in his hand, serious eyes peeking out from his boyish face. "I mean, just everyone. Me and BJ, Klinger and Colonel Potter, even Majors Houlihan and Winchester. Korea just won't seem the same without you."

Hawkeye's head was propped up slightly on pillows. His color was good, no smidge of a temperature, and he was slowly being weaned off the dozen different medications dripping into his right arm through the IV.

"I'm going to miss me around here, too, Radar. In a way I don't think I'll be the same without Korea."

"But at least you're going home, sir," Radar beamed, he fiddled with the pen in his hand, doodling random, swirling lines on the clipboard absentmindedly. "I guess that kind of makes up for everything else."

"You cut out all that "sir" stuff, Radar. I'm a bona fide civilian from here on out and you'd better remember it – and that's an order."

Radar grinned, snapping his fingers at his hairline in a salute, "Yes, sir, Hawkeye, sir."

Hawkeye chuckled weakly. "Don't make me laugh. I'll tear my stitches. And I don't want anything else to delay me now that I've finally got a one-way ticket out of this place."

Radar's smile slipped away, "You – you're sure you're gonna be alright, Hawkeye?"

"Sure I'm sure, Radar."

"I'll tell you the truth, Hawkeye," said Radar, eyes bright and flighty, cheeks flushing almost as if he was ashamed to admit it, "but there were some times there that I was afraid that maybe you weren't – well, you know – maybe you weren't going to make it."

Hawkeye smiled, "Don't you worry about me, Radar. I intend to live forever, or die trying."

The door at the end of post-op swung open and Colonel Potter marched in, heels clicking on the wooden floor, "Ambulance should be pulling in any minute. I trust Hunnicutt's got all your stuff packed and ready to go, Pierce?"

"All set, sir," Radar answered.

"I told him to make sure to get all the socks under the bed," said Hawkeye. "The still he gets to keep as an act of good will. Anything he happens to miss you can send up to Seoul – except anything in khaki you can burn."

Colonel Potter smiled and, army career aside, said obligingly, "Will do, Pierce." He stuck his hand out for Hawkeye to shake, "It's been an honor serving with you, son. We're sure gonna miss you around here."

"There's a lot of that going around," said Hawkeye, taking the colonel's hand. "I've been honored to call you my commanding officer, Colonel, and now I'm honored to call you anything but my commanding officer – I'll miss you, Sherman."

"Take care of yourself, son. Remember, Mildred still wants to meet you."

"Will do, Colonel. You give the army a good name, Colonel, and both of us know how highly I don't think of the army."

Colonel Potter chuckled, "Don't I know it, Pierce. I know you won't listen to me, but try to behave yourself while in Seoul. You've almost made it, don't screw it up by getting a court martial a week before you're supposed to go home."

"I'll try my best, Colonel," Hawkeye smiled. There was the sound of tires spinning in the compound and the slamming of a door.

"That'll be the ambulance now," said Colonel Potter.

"I'd better go make sure they've got all the right forms signed and sealed and stuff," Radar mumbled before shuffling hastily down the hall. He ducked his head against his shoulder as though trying to covertly wipe away tears.

"I'd better head out, too, Pierce," said Colonel Potter, stepping away from Hawkeye's bedside.

"Hey, Colonel –" Colonel Potter turned back around and Hawkeye raised his hand to his forehead to snap off a quick, albeit sloppy salute. "It's been a privilege."

Colonel Potter smiled but his eyes were somber. "Likewise, Pierce." He answered his salute. "Likewise."

Colonel Potter disappeared through the door and out into the compound, leaving Hawkeye alone in the silent ward. The door at the other end swung open once again and Hawkeye, expecting corpsmen with a stretcher to bring him out to the ambulance, was surprised to see Charles push through the doors.

"Ah-ha, Pierce," said Charles, although startled to see Hawkeye still there.

Hawkeye felt a smile tug at the corner of his lips. "Doctor Winchester, I presume?"

"I just came in to give my patient one last cursory exam before he went on his way," said Charles stuffily.

"Of course you did, Charles," said Hawkeye.

"How's the arm?" said Charles, something like real concern actually passing over his face.

Hawkeye wiggled the fingers of his left hand experimentally, still lying uselessly at his side but at least responding. "Coming along nicely, Charles. That was some nice work you did."

"Of course it was," said Charles.

Hawkeye laughed. "So, I guess this is so long Chuckles-old-pall. I'd like to say it's been real and it's been fun but I'm pretty sure both of those would be lies."

"It certainly ain't been real fun, Pierce." The words dropped stiffly from his mouth, almost as if the contraction almost physically hurt coming off Charles' lips.

Hawkeye smiled and reached out his hand for Charles to shake. "Personally I hope I don't see you a moment sooner before we meet again."

"My sentiments exactly." Charles took Hawkeye's hand in his own.

"After the war you'll have to look me up. We can grab a beer, talk about all the grand, old times we had in the army."

"Neither grand nor old, I'm sure, by then," said Charles, even though he knew the only thing that would compel him to voluntarily seek out Pierce after the war would have to be bordering on the pending annihilation of the world and certainly not for something as trivial as "grabbing a beer", perish the thought.

"Hopefully old, at least," said Hawkeye, mouth falling into an uncharacteristically somber line.

Charles smiled tightly and tried to find something to say. He had always prided himself on his ability to turn a phrase, but now he found any fitting words curiously mislaid.

"Take care of yourself, Pierce."

"You too, Charles. Go find yourself a girl, bring a Charles Emerson the Fourth into the world and name him after me."

"However admirable of a person our country's forefather Benjamin Franklin was, I truly do not see how I will ever be able to hear the name again without thinking of you."

"With warm thoughts, I hope."

"What do _you_ think, Pierce?"

Hawkeye stopped smiling but a grin shimmered in his blue irises. "You'll probably find this nearly as distasteful to hear as it is for me to say, but…I think you're a pretty swell guy, Charles. And thank you. For everything."

"However distasteful that may be to hear, Pierce," said Charles, barely containing both the roll of his eyes and quirk of his upper lip, "I think you should know that feelings are perfectly mutual. Thank _you_, Pierce."

"For what?" said Hawkeye. "BJ tells me I owe you my life."

Charles cleared his throat, realized he was still holding Hawkeye's hand in his own and gave his fingers a final, firm squeeze. "For…everything."

Hawkeye smiled until his blue eyes were almost overtaken by folds of skin. "See you around, Charles, you big lug."

Charles pulled his hand away and stepped back. "And you…Hawkeye."

* * *

Klinger took the head of Hawkeye's stretcher and marched him through the doors of post-op and into the compound, approaching the waiting ambulance. Hawkeye stared upward at the blueish gray sky and Klinger's large, hooked nose that loomed directly over him.

"You're hairy all over, Klinger, not just your legs."

Klinger flashed Hawkeye a toothy grin, "I'd be careful what I'd say if I were you, Captain. I am one of the only things stopping you from being dropped on your head at the moment."

Hawkeye laughed, "I'm going to miss you, Klinger, your hairy legs and high-heeled shoes, the handbags hanging off the tip of your rifle, not to mention your floor-length evening gowns at nine o'clock in the morning."

Klinger sighed, "Some people just don't understand that sometimes it's just nice for a guy to dress up, no matter what the time of day."

"I don't think anyone will believe me back home when I try to explain you," said Hawkeye.

Klinger grinned again, "Speaking of home – you don't think there's any chance of pulling a switch-a-roo when the driver's not looking, huh? I could slip into the ambulance and you could stay behind. I'd be half-way to Kimpo before they noticed I was missing."

"Not a chance, Klinger," said Hawkeye. "I earned this ride home by getting more than blisters on my toes from high-heels."

Klinger mumbled something about being underappreciated and a voice rang out overhead, "Not trying to slip away without saying good-bye, were you, Hawkeye?"

Hawkeye turned his head to see that what looked like the entirety of the MASH personnel had come out to see him off, the nurses, most of the corpsmen and, of course, his fellow officers.

Hawkeye almost wished they hadn't. He wasn't sure how he felt about large, showy good-byes. But, after all, it was liable to be the last time he'd see most of the people and he had spent the better part of two year – and suddenly his throat felt oddly tight and he wondered if the pain medication was making him unusually emotional.

Kellye stepped forward to peck him on the cheek, "Take care of yourself, Hawkeye." Her sentiments were echoed by the rest of the nurses, each stepping forward in turn to squeeze his hand or kiss his cheek.

"How come you're all so eager to give me what I've been asking for since I got here when it's just in time for me to leave?" pouted Hawkeye,

"There is something rather dashing about a brave and wounded soldier."

"There's room on the stretcher if any one of you want to keep me some company on the way up to Seoul," said Hawkeye.

To Hawkeye's surprise it was Margaret who answered, smile in her voice, "Sorry, Pierce, but you're to keep away from any overexertion for the next few weeks, doctor's orders."

"Want to come along to make sure I behave, Margaret?" Hawkeye wiggled his eyebrows, and Margaret, rather than her usual disapproval at his antics, merely laughed.

She moved forward to grasp his hand in her own. "Be a good boy, now, Pierce."

"Or what?" said Hawkeye, "you'll have to come down to Seoul to order me around?"

She smiled, but only slightly, and moved her head so that her face blocked the cloudy sky, until all he could see was her big blue eyes and feel her hot breath on his face. "I'm going to miss you, Pierce." Her voice was tight, her eyes glimmering. "You were – I know I could be a real –"

"–Pain in the butt, yeah," said Pierce and Margaret smiled, "but you turned out okay, kid."

For a moment her mouth moved soundlessly but she seemed to have resigned herself to saying what she'd come to say because she didn't step away. When she finally spoke her voice was soft and brittle, "You – you mean a lot to me, Hawkeye. I just wanted you to know that. And I'm going to miss you a lot, even for all your impish, immature, irritating –"

Hawkeye's laugh cut her off. "I'm going to miss you, too, for all you're severity, and strictness, and sternness."

She laughed that clear, genuine laugh of hers but it disappeared into the wetness in her eyes.

"How 'bout it, Margaret?" Hawkeye didn't know why he whispered. Suddenly Margaret's face was very close to his, leaning over the side of his stretcher. "One for the road?"

She kissed him then, a light, feathery thing that felt slightly restrained and he knew she was thinking of everyone watching them but also of that one terrifying, desperate night in a broken down hut, pattering heart-beats, and falling debris.

Hawkeye was just beginning to relish the taste of her lips on his when she pulled away all too soon. "Good-bye, Pierce," she said, and tugged her fingers away from his with noticeable reluctance.

"Good-bye, Margaret." The knob in his throat had formed into a definite shape now, and it was all sharp angles and sides that bit into his flesh and made it hard to breathe.

Margaret's head was replaced by Colonel Potter's who stuck out his hand one last time, and then by Rizzo's and Igor's, and then Father Mulcahy who, clutching his crucifix in one fist and Hawkeye's hand in his other, said with tears brimming in his eyes, "Bless you, Hawkeye. May you live a long life filled with joy and peace."

"Thank you, Father."

Charles didn't come forward again. In fact, Hawkeye couldn't see him anywhere in the compound. He figured everything that had to be said had already been said in post-op, besides, Charles obviously hadn't wanted an audience.

Finally BJ came loping forward, eyes bright but grinning that grin that Hawkeye had grown so accustomed to over that past year, teeth white and even, smiling over martini glasses and the tops of cards and letters from Peg and across the Swamp and forkfuls of indistinguishable, colorless globs in the mess tent.

He took Hawkeye's hand in his own, eyes strangely piercing for all their brightness in the gloomy, gray-shrouded compound. "Hey, Hawk."

"No good-byes yet, Beej," Hawkeye interrupted quickly. "I've got Colonel Potter's word he'll send you up to Seoul right before I've got the all clear."

BJ just nodded. He swallowed. Hawkeye wondered if he could speak at all. He, himself, certainly couldn't. BJ stepped aside and Radar replaced him.

Radar's eyes were big and tear-filled behind his glasses and Hawkeye felt the nob in his throat grow and twist and fill his chest until the pain was almost unbearable.

"Listen, Radar," he cleared his throat. "Don't let any of the big kids push you around – you're bigger than them in heart if not in size, and you just remember that. Take care of yourself, alright?"

Radar's chin wobbled. "You take care of yourself, too, Hawkeye. And – listen – as soon as this is all over I'm having everyone up to Iowa for a big party, and you're invited so you'd better be there."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Hawkeye squeezed Radar's hand before his stretcher scraped the rest of the way into the back of the ambulance.

All their faces: Colonel Potter, Margaret, Father Mulcahy, BJ, Klinger, Bigelow, Kelley – Charles' face looming like a reflection behind the screen in a door – and Radar's at the front, all of them smiling and blinking back tears and waving and shouting last minute good-bye, the words of which were lost in the jumble of their voices, all of it was the last glimpse Hawkeye had of MASH 4077 before the double doors of the ambulance shut, and the past two, eternal years were closed with the sound of metal on metal and the click of the latch.

And then the engine of the ambulance puttered to life beneath the floor and Hawkeye was going home.

* * *

I lied. Not over yet. Very brief epilogue to come. (Update: epilogue *possibly* to come; most likely someday, if not sometime in the near future. It won't be very relevant to the plot, though, just a opportunity for Beej and Hawk to say a proper good-bye.)

I really, really wanted to give you the story where the little Korean girl comes in with much more serious injuries and she and Hawkeye would sort of hang together in a limbo between life and death – creating this cool analogy for BJ with Sook-ja representing everything at home – little girl like Erin as she was – and Hawkeye, of course, representing what BJ has in Korea.

Eventually that story would have ended with the little girl living and Hawkeye dying and poor Beej probably ending up in a psyche ward, but – intriguing as all that may have been – the fact that Hawkeye, dead as he would have been, just wouldn't have been around anymore to crack jokes and point his finger with those sanctimonious how-dare-yous would have been a real bummer, so I guess I could learn to like this ending and hope you can too.


End file.
